Why can’t dogs be trained not to stop and shit in the middle of the pavement?

[hibiscuslightening]

If they can be housetrained then presumably they are able to hold onto their poo? So why do they seem to always stop dead in the middle of the pavement and do it there?

Can they not be trained / encouraged to go in a quiet place (ideally the owners own garden) before going right through the middle of a busy pavement outside the supermarket?

They can. Mine will only toilet in long grass or piles of leaves. Means she won’t go in our garden either, but it isn’t hard to do.

of course they can and most would want to

My dog is trained not to do it indoor and does generally prefer to do it on grass, so he’s unlikely to do one in the middle of the pavement, only if there’s nowhere else to go. And I always clean up after him so don’t really see the issue. Obviously if people are not cleaning up when their dog poos on the pavement that’s disgusting and wrong.

They can. Guide dogs. Police dogs. It's the owners that are the problem.

They can. Mine only poops at home or when off lead in a field (preferably long grass so he can't be watched). He would have to be absolutely desperate to poop on a pathway. My parents have no lawn just a fully paved garden and he won't pee or poo out there at all.

They can. Guide dogs for example are generally trained to only use their own gardens. For obvious reasons

Problem is, most people want the end result but aren’t prepared to be inconvenienced during the training process

It's the owners that have to be trained

Mine only goes in grass

Mine does. She won't go if anyone she doesn't know is around.

Why can't humans allow their dogs to leave their poops at home?

It's not rocket science.🙄

Some dogs are just annoying like that. They don’t want to stop walking so they try to hold it as long as possible and then essentially have an accident on the pavement while walking.

It's a rare thing to see a dog poo in the street.

The vast majority of dogs the vast majority of time go on grass at home or on a walk.

I always picked up after my dog, so it is not really a problem. The real problem is irresponsible people who don't pick it up.
My dog was housetrained, but I am not really sure how I could have trained her not to poo on a pavement. If she needed to go, she needed to go. Especially when some of our walks were along a pavement before we got to the park. She would often poo after a run about . A bit of exercise tends to get dog's bowels moving. She did mostly poo on grass though.

This. Unfortunately my young dog did this today. I am a responsible owner though and I picked it up. She doesn’t usually do this

I wish someone would train the ones that poo all over the pavement on the walk to our primary school. Not just one pile, but multiple, so you can barely avoid it unless you walk on the road.

My dog is 10 years old and has never once pooed on a pavement, she just wouldn’t choose to. But she never just has a lead walk, I always take her to somewhere she can be off lead.

My dog is not a MN dog. She only poos twice a day. She’s regular and predictable. I don’t think she’s that unusual. It’s one of those MN paradoxes that dogs are often observed walking about shitting copiously and indiscriminately yet no dog I’ve ever had or known has done that. See also slobber.

What I want to know is how come you can toilet train an animal to shit outdoors, but if they need to vomit, they just do it wherever, or start dramatically heaving so you have to chase them out

In London it's rare to not see multiple piles of dog shit in the street.

Naice road, naice borough etc but dog shit on literally every pavement we use.

Those who clean up don't tend to clean up the actual shit smear so you have the delight of stepping in less shit.

If dogs can so easily be trained then owners need to fucking train them.

I agree, @DeathBanana , in fact after reading some of these threads I sometimes think there must be criminal gangs of dogs paid to follow MNers into cafes to slobber over them, and then even more dogs paid to lavishly ‘shit and run’ in the middle of pavements in front of other MNers.

A paradox indeed.

I see you have cat experience 😆

I was sitting in a cafe once and they had tables outside and as it was a sunny day people were sitting there having lunch. A huge dog stopped about 3ft from people eating their lunch and had a huge shit. The owner did clean it up but honestly I couldn’t have carried on eating if I was sitting there. I was inside and it still put me off!

I didn't mean it's rare to see dog poo in the street. Although I don't see it that often on streets and I do spend quite a bit of time in London.

I meant it's rare to see a dog pooing in the street. Mostly they poo on grass.

It is pretty unnatural for a dog to just poo in the middle of the pavement. Mine have always sought to tuck themselves well away into undergrowth. (This doesn't necessarily mean that it is an ok place for the poo to be left and not picked up, of course)

Once they become very elderly, dogs do become more prone to pooing mid-pavement. Sometimes it is because arthritic tenderness makes squatting uncomfortable, so they leave it to the last minute when it is too late to fuss about position. Other times, perhaps old age simply reduces bowel control.

When dogs that aren't elderly or unwell do it, I feel rather sorry for them as I imagine it indicates that their owners have never given the opportunity and freedom to engage in more natural toileting habits

Think OP has done a dump and run away 😆