Puppy is pooing indoors and hiding to do it! How can I stop this?

[ThespianTendencies]

She is coming up for 12 weeks, have had her since 8 weeks. She is a brilliant puppy in almost every respect. Very clever, has adapted so well to our family life etc. She wees outside reliably and, as I have been really diligent about it all, we have had barely any accidents indoors. However....she will not poo outside! Occasionally she does, and she gets praise and a treat (same as weeing) but I keep finding little poos which she has done despite me being with her all day and watching her as much as is possible, It is like she is hiding away to do it! This mornign we were in the lounge and I found a poo by her toy box! Ithought she had gone there to get a toy but she had gone there to leave a little 'gift'. How can I combat this? I am watching her like a hawk but obviously I have to look elsewhere form time to time! I have upped the amount of visits outdoors b ugt she jsut won't go out there....it is getting very frustrating now and I don't want to cement this behaviour. Is she shy of doing it in front of me...??

Keep her on a lead, with you at all times s. When you can't, put her in a crate, hopefully you're crate training. It's a nightmare for about a fortnight and then most dogs would have got it. Every puppy I have had or have given this advice about has been fairly reliably house trained after two to three weeks.

So just keep her along side with me? It’s so deflating to see no progress with poos at all. I’m doing everything by the book and following advice. I’m being consistent but obviously I’m consistently wrong 😩

Have you tried waiting a long time outside and being a bit active with her after she has eaten and first thing in the morning when she is more likely to need to poo. Mine used to want to poo around 30mins after he had food and walking around the garden helped get things going.

And yes some dogs are shy when pooing. I have to look away and avoid any eye contact when mine poos otherwise it unsettles him.

I’m doing all that Bitey. Literally by the book! If I do catch her mid poo (which is rare!) I just say ‘no’ and carry her outside to
Finish. Have I scared her!? I don’t shout it.

I doubt you have scared her. You do need to have eyes on them all the time though at first otherwise as soon as you relax they are guaranteed to have a pee or a poo behind your back

As PP said you could tether her so as you move about she follows so no sneaking away from you to poo.

Have you tried being "busy" doing something else in the garden (whilst actually discreetly watching out of the corner of your eye)? My Cav doesn't like to be watched when he poos (he'll even stop midway and scuttle off behind something else if other dog looks at him - goodness knows why). That how I trained him just kept looking away pretending to be busy and not looking whilst carefully watching out of the corner of my eye, then as soon as he'd finished I'd look and tell him he was a good boy.

I found a spot inteh garden today where i can see her but she canot see me watching her! Prob is I could not actually see if she was weeing or pooing - especially in the dark! So I jsut said 'good girl' whenever I saw her squatting. There have been no wees or poos indoors all day so she is either holding it or is going undetected! This is much harder that it was with my lab but I am sure I will get there in the end...