Dog messing during night

[bananatuna]

Our 16 month old terrier occasionally messes in the house at some point between us going to bed and waking. She has a crate which she automatically goes to when we go to bed, but we leave the door open and she often moves to a spot at the bottom of the stairs. DH is wondering if we should close the crate at night but I'm not totally comfortable with that (definitely not in hot weather as she needs to spatchcock herself on the tiles). Like I say - it's only occasional - maybe once a month / 6 wks - so is it just fairly normal young dog behaviour rather than a problem to resolve?

Yes, locking her in a crate so she’s forced to mess her bed, just so you don’t have to clean up elsewhere, would be awful & cruel. Stick to your guns on that one.
Do you put her out for one last toileting trip before you head off to bed?

I’d move dinner to an earlier time of day and walk before bed.
Doesn’t the dog cry for the loo? If the dog does and you don’t hear it that’s on you (sorry). I find little dogs need the toilet more frequently too.

Don’t lock her in to mess her crate- that’s grim. Plus may get on her anyway.

On days when she’s clean overnight is she desperate for a poo first thing , if so you could try to feed her at a different time so that she won’t be wanting to go until later . I don’t think it’s a normal young dog thing at that age as by then she should be able to hold on or wake you up to go out unless it’s an upset stomach type accident .

I would push her dinner later so she can wait until morning to poo.

Ask 100 people about dogs and get 100 different answers.

I guess Itsnotthesameasitwas the idea of locking the crate is that the dog will make a noise when they want to go out so OP gets up to let them out.

She has dinner 5/5.30 ish and gets taken out when we go to bed. She's rarely desperate to go out in the morning and usually doesn't poo straight away, she has a wee first and poo later in the morning. On days she goes to daycare she comes home starving and asks for dinner straight away - around 4. I wonder if that's it - maybe it's when she's had a very early dinner. She did have a tummy upset a while ago and cried to go out a few times - we slept downstairs with her then to make sure she could go when she needed. Definitely won't be shutting her crate - it's not a huge deal to pick up a couple of occasional little poos.

Do the overnight accidents occur on the days when she has the earlier dinner the night before as that could be the answer , in which case just give her a small biscuit / something to chew and make her wait for normal dinner time . I actually disagree that it’s not a huge issue to pick up the occasional poo as IMO if they think it’s ok to poo / wee indoors ever that as they age they will just think who cares . It’s different if we were talking about an older dog that has control issues due to age / infirmity .

I wouldn't say it was normal, no.

I would look at adjusting the timings of her meals, toilet breaks etc. Mine gets his main meal in the middle of the day, plus a handful of biscuits just before he goes to bed. If we feed him too late, he'll wake us at 4am for a poo, but if we feed him too early and skip the biscuits, he has the hunger pukes at 4am instead

Unless there's a medical issue, I would disagree that it's "okay to pick up the occasional poo". Adult dogs with no health/age issues shouldn't be toileting in the house.

Exactly. She would definitely wake us before she messes in her crate. But I'm still not keen to shut the door as she likes to move between crate and bottom of stairs.
She might have made a noise but we didn't hear anything but we've had windows open in the heat and foxes have been noisy.