Midnight brownies...

[Nagini]

Hi!

I have a 19 month old female presa canario thats developed a really bad habit recently.

Some background info to start with:
* she is house-trained (so much she can be, after reading this post...)
* she scratches on the door when she needs to go out, in the past she even asked sometimes to go out even during night time, and we have then taken her down quickly if she did
* she gets fed twice a day, she then poops twice a day too at regular times
* she is not allowed on the furniture in general, but during night time we have allow her on the couch to sleep

Very recently (past 1-2months) she poops on the living room floor at night time. So you can imagine I get up in the mornings with a cool banging headache! The problem is, she doesn't even ask to go out during night time, instead just poops on the same spot on the living room floor.

I have washed the floors with normal cleaning stuff and then on top of it with some specific stuff that takes the smell of pee/poop away, but I think she goes back to the same spot just because she knows its "the same spot I always do my things at". (Just like outside she prefers the same spots where she always poops and pees at.)

Some mornings when I see she's pooped again at night, I think to myself what could be a reason for it? Sometimes I realize that she only did 1 poop the previous day, and she always is used to making 2, so maybe thats why? Or other similar reasons.

But for example last night, everything was normal until evening. I took her for evening walk, she didnt do her regular No. 2 there. So after we came back up, she ate her food, and after that she asked to go out FOUR TIMES IN A ROW!!!

Heres what I did after each time she asked to go out (I always wait about 10min with her outside, after that I come back up again, cant spend all evening waiting for her outside...):

After 1st time I took her down immediately, she must need to poop now I thought to myself. I waited outside with her 10min, she didnt do anything, I came back up.

After the 2nd time I took her down, NOW she must need to go down for a poop! And she did poop, but no pee.

After the 3rd time Nothing happened outside, I came up again.

After the 4th time She peed, I came back up again.


And then I woke up in the morning with a brownie on the floor.

Do you have any suggestions to help me improve this situation? Its pretty annoying...

[luckypenny]

Can you take her for a longer walk rather than waiting around for 10 minutes? It may help stimulate her bowels. You can also try feeding her a bit earlier in the evenings and see if that doesn't move her elimination schedule up a bit.

[cell]

try less waiting and more moving as luckypenny stated, movement and smelling other dogs wastes usually stimulates the bowel/bladder. Also it's good to try and be sure its the end of the deal, usually the end of the poop should be soft and tapering off, if its a blunt nugget it usually means there is more to come.
You might also want to try nighttime crating, dogs will hold as long as they can to avoid eliminating in their den.
You could also try feeding her on the spot she poops, no one wants to poop where they eat.

[Dog Dancer]

All good advice. I was also going to suggest crating at night if this is the trouble time for her. Is she crate trained at all??

[Nagini]

Thanks for replies!

She is crate trained and she spent all her nights there when she was getting housetrained when she was smaller. I would just rather like to try and tackle the problem itself and see why she is doing this and if there is anything I can do to fix, rather than I go around the problem and just crate her which will automatically make a stop to pooping at night times. Because then when she will be let out of the crate for night times after some time, I have no insurance that she will not go back to her old habits. If it makes any sense to anyone? I dont want to crate her for good, I see the crate more like a tool, right?

And the thing is, Ive heard that running and movement does actually stimulate bowel movement, and it does help, yes! I sometimes run around a little with her and then she often gets stimulated to poop. But the area we live at... Gosh you should see it! In the evening times therre is atleast 10 bunnies around the grass, good evenings you can count up to 30 of them. Kids playing around, kicking football etc etc.

Its not easy when your dog has a pretty high prey drive and OBSESSION TO BALLS! And running does not help enough because she gets distracted. The reason why I keep it to 10min is because she could spend HOURS there just looking, and she totally forgets about her need to go potty! Thats why I keep it short, and come back again. Atleast she has had the opportunity to go potty, and if she didnt do anything, she will have a chance again when she asks for it.

I could find a better spot (not so full of distractions) but there is really none close by...

But that consistency of the poop was a good thing, I'll keep that in mind!

I really hope this ends soon though!

[Nagini]

Aaarg! It seemed to go well for a little while now, but I yesterday I took her out several times and she pee'd and occasionally pooped and even just had fun time and nothing else... Then in the morning, poop and pee on the floor??

I think its time to agree with you and put her to the crate again at nights. But will she continue doing this after I un-crate her again?

How do I catch her doing it at night time? I cant, can I?
She thinks its okay to go on the floor at night time

We've actually had this problem ever since she got house trained... Now that I think back thats actually why we kept crating her at nights...

ANY ideas how to tackle this? Do I have to sleep on the couch some nights to try and catch her doing it at night time? I gotta do what I gotta do...

[cell]

I am having sort of the same issue with Leo (11 months) wetting his kennel at night (this is why he stays in the kennel, we have carpet and I wouldn't find the pee) so we will cut off his water now around 6-7 and see if that helps.
If you are still having poop issues, you might want to try feeding earlier as suggested (if your spacing meals) or just doing one meal in the morning giving all day for it to work its way through as previously suggested... Right now it's likely just a bad habit/internal clock timing that her bowels start to move in the middle of the night.