my adult dog has started pooing at night

[susiedurant]

Hi, We got our rescue collie at 8 months. Aside from a few accidents she was clean at night. For the last three months she has started pooing at night, near her bed. We have tried changing her diet, her meal times and everything else we can think of. She has her tea at 4.30pm and is taken outside around 10pm for about 15 minutes but very rarely does she poo then, she just wants to come in and go to bed. She looks unhappy when she has made a mess and very pleased with herself when she doesn't. She is in good health. We literally don't know what else to try so any advice welcome please.

Have you been to the vet? When my dog started this is was because he had nerve damage, absolutely no other signs just couldn’t feel properly. He was quite old though.

Vet first, then I’d look at diet. Dogs can suddenly become intolerant to things that they’ve been fine with before.

Are the poos normal? Not liquid or runnier than usual?

Hi, She is just over a year old and in good health, so far as we are aware. She saw the nurse recently who thought she was fit and well. Her poos are sometimes quite loose although it does vary. We have cut out all extra bits in her diet and she only eats top quality dried food from our local pet shop.

Is she fed once a day or twice?

I would feed her last feed later and she if she can last until morning

Assuming there are not health issues are behavioural issues going on.......

How many poos a day does she do usually?

Twice a day but on certain advice started feeding her more in the morning and only a little at tea time. We tried feeding her later but that didn't work.... if it is behavioural how do we change that? She seems to know it is wrong, even though we don't tell her off as she is very sheepish if she has messed and waggy tailed if she hasn't!

Could it be anxiety based? Is she happy being left alone at night?

If she's just over a year old and you've had her since she was 8 months old (and the problem has been happening for 3 months), it just sounds as though she hasn't been reliably toilet trained. If those numbers are correct then there couldn't have been an extended period when she was reliable overnight. I would go back to basics and treat her like a much younger puppy in order to reinforce house training. I'd also make an appointment with the vet to make certain there are no health concerns. Where does she sleep?

We have been thinking that might be a possibility. She sleeps in the kitchen...... we didn't really want to get into the habit of her sleeping in the bedroom but maybe we should look at that....

We are thinking that might be the case. She sleeps in the kitchen with the door shut to the rest of the house....

Sleeping in the bedroom doesn't need to be forever - in fact, she doesn't even need to be in the bedroom - what about on the landing so she can still hear/smell/see you?

Our adult dog sometimes goes out to poo in the night (he's 6).

It's when he hasn't been for a late walk.

He wakes us up to let him into the garden.

If she's shut away from you, she has no way to tell you if she needs to go out in the night. If her stools are loose, maybe the food she's on doesn't suit her, or she's anxious. Might something be waking/frightening her in the night? Vet first, but then I'd go back to basics with housetraining, maybe try a hypoallergenic food, and make sure she has a way to ask to go out in the night if she needs to.