urgent advise needed

[fledtoscotland]

i am a relatively experienced dog owner. we have two collie crosses who are angels (most of the time), really good with DC and generally easy well-behaved dogs.

my friend got a rescue 6month old pup (lab x) before xmas and i have agree to help him watch her as im at home all day and he works three 12hr shifts a week. she has a lovely nature, gets on well with my two mutts, good with DC, good in the car and walks well on the lead BUT she poos/wees in my house all the time.

last night she was in the kitchen for 20mins whilst we bathed the boys. all dogs were there after their meal and when DH came down to talk them out for a walk, this dog had pooed in two of the dog beds. DH takes all the dogs out and i clear up. hes out for an hour, she doesnt do anything, come home and dogs in kitchen for 30mins until they are dry. we are in lounge next door and our kitchen only has a babygate so the dogs arent excluded. no whining etc - go into kitchen to let dogs out into lounge and this dog has pooed again in her bed.

this morning. come downstairs at 6am when DS1 gets up to find her lying in poo in her bed.

this is not diarrhea, she is housetrained during the day and at her home and 90% of the time when she is with me but i cant cope with washing dog beds daily plus its not fair on my childen not being allowed in the kitchen (i have to disinfect all the beds/floor when she goes home). i always understood that a dog would never poo in its bed let alone lie in it.

my friends is at the end of his tether as this has been going on since he got her but there is no pattern to the accidents. he thinks she will have to go but am looking for some advice/a magic wand

TIA

Bumping this up for you - wish I could help, but I haven't a clue!

thanks - dont want her to go but my friend has said she is "on probation" for a week.

this might be wrong, but i think she may be doing this for attention, if she only does it if left on own. Maybe her previous owners ignored her unless she pooed in the house, which she was told off for? any attention is attention negative or not. if thats the case it is a learned behaviour.

She can be re trained but it will require lots of determination and patience on everyones part. basically take her back to basics and start toilet training like you would a new pup.

Hope that helps.

and don't pay her any attention when she does it in the house, don't even make eye contact with her, or touch her or use her name etc.

morethanyoubargainfor - that is what my DH has suggested. unfortunatly we dont have the time to go back to basics. whilst in my house, she is treated the same as my dogs. gets attention but DC come 1st. my dogs are OK with this as they know come 7pm, DC are in bed and it is their time. my friend also looks after his nephew so she needs to be reliable in his house too.

we try not to react when she poos in our house but this morning was the final straw. been up through the night with two ill children and the last thing i needed was washing dog beds.

am beginning to dread her being here

I would be contacting the rescue place - they often have people that can help with this sort of thing - they would much rather give you help and assistance to get it sorted out rather than having her back as she will then have a 'failed' rehoming on her record.

Oh - and just for some support - I had to get up every night at 3 / 4am for my dog for about 6mo - she needed to go out so would come and squeek on the landing to attract my attention. She suddenly stopped doing this - I think she realised that this was her home and she didn't need to be anxious - she now will go round to 9am or later if its raining!

she was got through a advert unfortunately. the circumstances were that a couple were splitting up and neither were in a position to take the dog. she has obviously been looked after, not mistreated, in good condition, very friendly etc its just this whole pooing thing.

oh and she also eats everything in site - beds, towels, toys etc etc and dig in the garden. typical puppy behaviour IMLE except when my two were pups they learnt quickly. she doesnt seem to respond to anything. even being told off doesnt work. positive reinforcement (have tried cooked chicken as a high- value reward) doesnt seem to have an impact on her behaviour

I appreciate that your DC should come first, but this dog also needs you, not only is it only 6 months old, it is already on second home and then it has the confusion of being in your house with different rukes for 3 days per week. It is confused and needs some continuity(SP?). I am amsuming yu are in scotland which is a shame as i would have loved to worked with her.

mistlethrush - my two would whine if they needed out during the night (sometimes they still do) but she doesnt even try to attract attention. i dont get the whole pooing in bed thing. i always understood that a dog wouldnt do that hence the principle of "crate training" a puppy

morethanyoubargainfor - do you have an email address. am in scotland but would appreciate any help at all. having always had rescues i really dont want her to go to home number 3 as i know that will really affect her and she is a lovely dog

my dog doesn't make any noise, so he wouldn't squeak or attract attention at all if he needed to go out. have you heard this dog make ay noise at all, does she bark etc?

just because a dog looks healthy and in good condition doesn't mean she hasn't been neglected in other ways. I suspect she has been ignored and thats where this problem originates from.

fledtoscotland if you CAT me i am sure we can chat further.

I would ring the Dogs Trust and explain - they may be able to help and suggest something.

In terms of the eating everything - we had a collie cross that did that - she would go through a 6" knot in about 2 hrs - but it was less expensive than having her eat shoes, tubes of toothpaste and toothbrushes, shampoo bottles and talc bottles etc.

With her we got a Kong toy - and would stuff it with biscuits that took a lot of getting out - you can also freeze these with eg soft cheese stuffed in.

Its really difficult with what is essentially a puppy that clearly doesn't know about house training properly - and now has two different households to get used to - and you understandably can't spend lots of time due to the children. If you didn't have that I would be suggesting spending as much time out with her as possible, with lots of positive praise when she does what she needs to outside. However, as that's not on - can you crate her for the times that you are not in the kitchen and make sure that you can easily deal with any accidents - old towels on top etc - it doesn't sound as though she's doing anything when you're actually in the room at least...

i dont know how to cat. sorry. need to go now as DS2 is awake from nap. my email is kab0901 @ yahoo . co. uk.

would appreciate any help. thanks

I agree with morethan - it does sound like an attention-seeking manoeuvre on her part, although maybe a few tweaks in her routine would help too (in your very first post you say the dogs were left in the kitchen for a while after being fed - at this age I would put them straight outside after feeding).

Unfortunately they quickly learn that pooing/weeing inside will get them attention, even the negative sort and as far as I know, the only way to stop it is to adopt a totally consistent policy of ignoring them completely when they do this, nad praising like mad (with food too) when they do it outside. Labs are generally very biddable and fairly intelligent so she should pick this up quickly, but of course it has to be consistent, in both households too.

This pup has had lots of upheaval and is now trying to cope with two very different households so it is totally understandable that she is doing this. She's also teething at the moment so she needs planety of safe toys to chew. Nylabones are very good.

Best of luck - I can understand how hard it is for you with the dc's too. I would second the recommendation of a crate for when you are not with her, both for the house training and chewing.

Perhaps she is confused through being in two homes. My first dog lived with me in a flat and when she was a puppy it was very difficult to reain her as she had to learn to ask to go out and get down two flights of stairs. She used to poo on her bed and I think this might been because she thought that was the safestplace not to get into trouble, because she knew it was her place and not mine. ( She did learn, and lived to be 17) We also had a rescue dachshund that had never lived in a house and he used to go out for a walk and then poo in the house when he got back. It just took a bit of time to sort him out. Once this dog is used to being in two homes she should be OK - whether you can put up with this that long is another matter!

thanks for all the suggestions.

we sat down tonight and have said that will see how she is over the weekend.

what i really dont understand is that she goes for weeks being really good (apart from the odd chewing incident which i can handle as she is a pup and to be expected) then we have a really bad few days with the pooing etc. both my friend and i are very consistent in our treatment of the dogs. they have a very fixed routine regarding walks and meals and both households are strict with things like no dogs on furniture, no food from the table etc etc

during the day today she has been fine. no issues at all. we put all dogs in the garden to have their dinner tonight and they stayed there until after DC were bathed and in bed and i am just back from walking them.

she has a fantastic nature but this problem with her pooing everywhere needs to be addressed. We have a toddler and a baby and they must come first as must my friends nephew who visits him regularly.

hi fledtoscotland,

how has she been over the weekend?

hi MTYBF - we had a disastrous thursday and friday. she was pooing and weeing everywhere. to the point that even when she was with us, she would walk out of the room and wee in another room. (BTW this was in her home not at mine).

she has now wee'd/pooed in every room in both mine & my friends house plus she got up on his bed yesterday and wee'd there.

My friend phoned dogs trust yesterday out of desperation (he had his nephew visiting and had to start disinfecting carpets) and they are going to take her in.

he feels that he has no option as she is ruining his house and is getting to the point he is reluctant to let her in his car in case she does it there.

am really sorry it has come to this as in general she has a lovely nature but she just cant adjust to being without human company even for moments. dogs trust have said that they will work with her to see what issues she has before she gets rehomed but its another 3 weeks before they have a space so another 3 weeks of disinfectant etc.

thanks for the help though