Why won’t the puppy stop crapping on the kitchen floor?!

[soupforbrains]

We have a 6.5 month old puppy. (Beagle X Working Cocker) he has been mostly housetrained for a while. He never pees indoors and he will poo outside on his walks.

When he needs to pee in between walks he will come an ask to be let out. But when he needs to poo between walks he just does it on the kitchen floor. If we successfully manage to keep the kitchen closed he is 100% capable of holding it until his next walk.

We are using enzymatic cleaning products and mopping the floor daily on top of the spot cleaning after he does it. We’ve tried everything, including never allowing him to be alone and literally physically picking him up if he’s going to poo and taking him outside. As well as keeping the kitchen closed (he doesn’t have ever poo anywhere else inside) the problem is that the cats can open doors and they often leave the door to the kitchen open unbeknownst to us.

Why is the puppy so attached to pooing in the kitchen?! What else can I do to stop it?

Please help!

If he doesn't poo anywhere else inside, I would use baby gates instead of doors to keep him out of the kitchen - the cats will still be able to get in/out but the dog won't.

Then on top of that, go back to basics - take him out regularly for toilet breaks - maybe add in a command word too, plus lots of praise and a treat when he goes outdoors.

They can do this when they don't feel like that part is their 'den.' Maybe it is too clean? Sounds mad I know but maybe put a bed in there so he feels like it's part his

They won't poo in places they feel are part to their space, usually.

It's because puppies are assholes. HTH.

(Sorry, have a 14-week-old here who has been an asshole all day.)

How many times a day is he pooing?

We have baby gates on all the other doors of the kitchen but it’s really awkward on the one door. Maybe we’ll need to reconsider but I’d really like to not have to have gates forever…

The bed thing might work I’ll give it a go.

do you mean how many times a day does he poop in total or how many times does he do it in the kitchen?

he always does 2 poos on his first thing in the morning walk then poos once around lunchtime and again between 4&6pm. Depending on how many treats he had had through training then he sometimes poos again on his last walk in the evening.

That's quite a lot of poo even for a puppy - what food is he on? Are his poos solid and firm and easy to pick up or are they a bit soft and sloppy?

The baby gates don't need to be permanent, but they are an easy way to enforce boundaries while you work on his toilet training.

I meant to add, are his treats coming out of his daily allowance or on top of it? If they're extra, he may be struggling to hold it if he's being over-fed.

Why won’t the puppy stop crapping on the kitchen floor?!

Because it hasn’t got a kennel in the yard.

If your puppy is having three meals a day I would say that amount of poo is ok if it is well formed.

I would be dropping down to two meals a day at this age.

If it happens at lunchtime then that is when you have to be really vigilant and not let her be alone in the kitchen until she has pooed. Back to basics go outside with her and reward her for pooing in the garden. The more times she is rewarded for pooing outside the quicker she will get it.

Tie in a short walk ti get his 4-6 poo outside and he will soon get into the habit of pooing outside

if he ever had puppy pads or frequently pooed indoors it will take a bit of vigilance to break the habit but treat him like a very small puppy and he will learn that outside is the only acceptable place to poo.

If he is showing signs of anxiety or always pooing when he is on his own in the kitchen then there may be other issues involved but I would start of by thinking he is just not totally trained to avoid the kitchen.

We do feed 3 meals a day. His poos are firm and well formed. His training treats get deducted from his daily allowance.

he does not poo in the garden. His choice. He pees there but he will only poo away from the home (apart from the kitchen floor). He is walked in the morning, lunchtime, 4:30, 6:30 and 9:30pm to give him plenty of opportunity to poo. He is also allowed out into garden in between these times. We have never stopped rewarding him for pooing outside.

he obviously only poos in the kitchen when alone because if anyone is with him and sees him starting to squat then we intervene and take him outside.

you sound very knowledgeable but I don’t really see any actual advice we can use in your post. Obviously we can see he has not been trained to avoid the kitchen… that’s literally the point.

it’s not a question of struggling to hold it, as like I said if he has no access to the kitchen then he happily and comfortably waits until the next walk. Obviously we are restricting access to the kitchen but as I said previously there is one door which the cats are able to open and leave wide enough for him to sneak through.

i was really hoping not to have to put yet another gate up (particularly as it’s not a standard size door) but I think that’s the only option we have.

I think you are making this more complicated than it is. I agree with Ing above

Your dog is not toilet trained to the kitchen so you have to go back to basics. Take the dog out frequently and reward for pooing in the garden.

Do wait for the poo in the garden and then let the dog into the kitchen

The dog should not be unsupervised in the kitchen until they have learnt (by being taken out frequently to poo in the garden) that the kitchen not the place to poo.

I don’t really see any actual advice we can use in your post. It is pretty basic and normal advice for toilet training a dog and if you cant do it then I guess you will have a dog that carries on pooing in the kitchen,

Problem with a door gate is that the minute that is removed your dog will go back to pooing in the kitchen unless you have as above taught them to poo outside

i appreciate it’s all the basics. Hence why it’s things we are already doing and which I’ve said we are doing already in my earlier posts. Which is why I don’t see any advice in that response.

i agree on the gate. I don’t want to have gates forever so I don’t really want to go down that route.

if you had read my post you will see that I’ve said that the dog WILL NOT POO in the garden. This is not me preventing him from doing this or not waiting long enough etc. He simply will not pop in the garden, much like he won’t pop anywhere else in the home.

I've also said previously that he is never intentionally unaccompanied in the kitchen. We don’t leave the kitchen open for him. But occasionally the cats do unbeknownst to us. This is the only time he gets into the kitchen alone.

we DO still reward for pooing outside and we do take the dog out frequently.

I’m not saying that what is being suggested is incorrect. Merely that it’s unhelpful since we are already doing all of it and it’s not working. Hence my coming here to see if anyone had any other advice aside from the usual house training techniques.

Sorry I seem to be making you grumpy and being unhelpful!

Do you have any friends with dogs? If you can get them to come (the dogs!) and wee and poo in your garden it will help your dog to poo there.

At what point on the walk does your dog poo? f it is early on the walk go out and walk and then come back to your garden and walk around on lead and your dog may poo. The exercise helps the dogs to want to go.

Has your dog ever used puppy pads in the house? If yes then put these out in the garden and take your dog on lead to the pads.

Has your dog ever pooed in the garden?

Toilet training is really just habit forming.

He's pooing in the kitchen because he's developed the habit to do so. It's almost certainly that simple. Use gates to break the habit - they won't have to be forever, just long enough to get him back out the habit.

Have him poo outside on walks, as he does, and try to make those walks in similar environments to your garden. So, if your garden is turfed and normally mown then try to increase the chances of him pooing on grass (anywhere) but walking him on mown grass. If your garden is mainly concrete, walk him on concrete. Etc. Helps encourage the sight/feel/smell of those kinds of environments as being 'right' to poo in. Just like it'll feel 'right' for you to poo in a quiet bathroom whjile sat on the loo.

At 6.5 months he's likely to start pooing in his own garden sooner or later. They can still be a bit funny at that age about where feels right to poo.

I’ve had many dogs in my life and trained lots of puppies including a dachshund- the most difficult of all to toilet train.

Since your puppy is pooing in the house, it’s time to go back to basics. This means having the puppy with you and, as soon as he starts to poo, taking him outside. Then over-the-top praise when he does it outside.

Of course, the tough bit is not leaving him alone for about 2 weeks so that he has no or very few accidents and gets into a new routine.

It’s as simple as that. Really, it’s you being trained to keep him under observation.

This works.

Getting him to poo in the garden is another step. I’d recommend getting him to poo outside reliably first then getting him to use the garden.

Ok thanks everyone.

He did used to pop in the garden. When he first started going outside. But the last 2 months he doesn’t like pooing in the garden or on the green near our house (which used to be his favourite place to poop) now he only goes further away from the house.

As disgusting as it sounds, have you tried saving a poo from his walks and putting it in the garden so he realises that's where he's supposed to go?

I mean he’ll have to poo in the garden eventually if there is no other option?
I would take a few days to just take him out in the garden repeatedly and praise for going to break the cycle but that’s because I couldn’t be fitting 6+ walks into my day tbh

gates aren’t forever they are to stop habits forming. You can usually pick them up second hand or just use something to block the door if needs be, until you’ve got him understanding not to poop in the kitchen.