Trying to get dog to poo in one place.

[belindarose]

We have problems with dog's loose poo - trying to sort it through diet and vets, but no luck so far. Sometimes they're okay, but mostly very soft, if not runny, and difficult to clear up. An absolute nightmare on the grass in the garden and we're getting to the point where dd can't play out there (obviously we clear up after every poo, but it's hard to do so effectively). DH in particular getting very pissed off about it.

So we want to train him to poo in one place - a concrete bit that we'll be able to hose down. Any tips for doing this please? We're trying taking him on the lead to that place, waiting a few minutes, then bringing him back in if he hasn't done it. Only started this afternoon and no poo so far.

Are we mad? Or is this likely to work? He's 6 months, by the way, and he was very easy to housetrain. Should have started this back then, of course, but didn't realise the difficulties we'd have.

May be tricky, concrete isn't nice under their feet and they can be fussy like that, especially when there is lovely grass, just over there>>>>>>>>> to poo on.

My two dogs - one loves to poo on grass, but won't go outside if it's wet at all. Other one not bothered by rain, doesn't like to poo on grass or when out for a walk.

Only thing I can suggest is lots of praise/treats for pooing in the 'right' place and ignore poos in the wrong place. Hopefully an expert will be able to help more!

This might sound a bit odd, but it might help. We used to live in Hong Kong, where most people live in flats, but a lot have dogs. To take them out to relieve themselves, the done thing was to put a sheet of folded newspaper under their bums, at just the right time, and then scoop it away, so as not to dirty the path. It works there- might work with yours. You can then move the newspaper to where you want him to go. You just have to time it well!

we managed to train our old dog to poo on the slabs at the end of the garden rather than on the grass, it was a few years ago now though, so not sure exactly how we did it!

from memory we put plastic mesh fencing up so when she got let out she could only get to the slabbed area (not on the grass), we only let her out under supervision at first (she sometimes wriggled though the fencing!)

lots of praise maybe even treats when she performed in the right place :)

so no you're not mad, but it might take a while! :)

Yes you can train a dog to poo and wee in one place. My dogs have an area and I wee and poo them there before we go out so I do not have to carry hundreds of filled poo bags on the walk with me.

Do what you are doing - it will take time and you will get frustrated but it really is worth it and will make life much easier.

Has he ever pooed on concrete - if not it may take longer and you may have to restrict access to other areas until he does poo.

Dogs tend to be quite regular although if your dog has a sensitive tum it may be a little harder to work out when he will poo.

So out on a lead click and treat and give a word to having a poo and a wee. Yummy treat when done and a game.

Do not let out on own for a while and then when he is readily weeing and pooing in the correct place you can try going out with him off lead and he should have got the idea by then. It will take time and it will need you to be vigilant each time he is allowed to poo somewhere else it will give him mixed messages.

Good luck

Thanks everyone. I'll keep going with this plan then, although also like the idea of fencing off his toilet area so that's the only bit he gets to for now. We'll see how this goes for a few weeks first. He does poo on concrete if he is out and needs to. I worry about this too, because of the cleaning up issue, so it would be good to train him to poo before we go out at all.