Timid rescue female - question about wees and poos

[DorisTheOctopus]

A week ago we recently adopted a lovely c.4 year old spayed female. She’s an ex-breeder and was never housetrained. She was in the rescue for several months and could only be homed with a resident dog, due to her anxiety. Our existing dog is an 18 month old male who has been wonderful with her (and she him). They have immediately bonded and we are starting to see signs of her character shining through now. She really is a sweet dog.

So far, she’s settled in surprisingly well given her timid nature, and our existing dog is helping enormously with this. Our one concern is we are not used to female dogs and we are really surprised by how long she will go without a wee or poo.

The poo I have put down to a combination of anxiety and mild constipation (the latter is my own fault for giving her and our existing dog a bone each - the chewing really helped calm her). She has been pooing every two days, but today’s poo was after a hiatus of 3 days, so was on verge of taking her to the vet. I have taken away the bone, upped her wet food to biscuits ratio and added water to her meals. Hopefully that will help.

The wee thing though is concerning me as well - for example, she might have a long wee in the morning and then not go again until the evening (so around 8 hours in the day without a wee), despite being offered ample opportunity to do so. I just want to know whether this could be normal for her? When she first arrived she was doing lots of little wees (more similar to our male dog), so when she suddenly started going for long periods between wees it was a bit concerning.

Best case scenario is she was anxious when she arrived and did lots of little wees as a result, but now she feels more secure she feels comfortable to hold it for longer.

Any owners of female dogs have any thoughts?

P.S. Probably relevant - so far, she is mostly weeing and pooing in our garden. She hasn’t done anything in the house since Wednesday. It seems to be going so suspiciously smoothly that I am sure there has to be a hitch!

My male dog can go 8 hours plus without a wee. I take him out, send him out but he's very stubborn and if it's raining he won't leave the house!

9yo girl dog here. Quite often (especially in the winter) I will take her out at 7am for her main walk, and she she naps all day amd won't emerge to go out for a wee until I finish work at 5ish (I WFH so she can go out whenever she likes). So from my perspective seems quite normal!

I foster rescue dogs. Most of them have never lived in a house before and it’s entirely Normal for them to barely wee or poo for a few days whilst they are settling in. I’d give it another couple of days and then take her to the vet if things haven’t improved. I suspect she’s just frightened stil but worth going to vet for advice if it goes on another couple of days

Thanks so much, it’s great to hear it could be normal!

It’s quite a contrast to my male dog, who marks nearly every single lamppost and bush he can.

@Milliemoos5 , that’s interesting (and huge respect to you for fostering rescues). When your fosters settled in and felt more confident, did any of them take to pooing/weeing in the house again, if they started off by doing so outside?

There were sometimes accidents indoors yes. But it does eventually stop. But what I found with my rescues was how amazing they were at learning how to ‘behave’ like my own resident dog (who is a very good boy!)

I know gross, but leave her poo in the garden a few days... hopefully she'll learn where her spot is.
On a different note, I have 2 dogs my boy doesn't poo in our garden (or the house). He has a few sopts where he likes to go in the neighbourhood- we had him from 8 weeks!
Dogs are strange creatures!

My rescue girl couldn't seem to hold it very long when she first arrived and will now happily argue with me that she doesn't need to go out for a late night wee, she can last until morning, even if the last time she actually went for a wee was in the morning!

She gets a fibre supplement for her anal glands- you could add that to her food if you're worried, it'll do no harm. It's called Pro-fibre by Protexin and you can buy from amazon for around £11 a tub. I soak the pellets of it in hot water to make it into a mush that I can mix in with her food (if I don't she doesn't eat it), so that helps get water into her too.

Ah, a lightbulb just came on in my mind - if she was kept in kennels not in the house in her previous home she is probably used to being let out of the kennels twice a day for exercise. I've known a few working dogs who lived in kennels and most of them always saved their toileting for when they were let out, presumably because it isn't pleasant to be caged up with it in their home for hours. One bitch in particular would have a long wee only a few strides away from the kennel, she must have been desperate but she never soiled her kennels.

When ddog arrived here he didn't wee until about 10 minutes into a walk. Poo took about half an hour.
He still has a cast iron bladder especially on wet days...but wees all the time on walks.
He is on expensive vet food and doesn't poo often. Two to three days is normal according to the expensive vet!

My dog can easily go 15 hours overnight without weeing 😵‍💫, and probably almost the same by day if it’s raining!

My adult dog can happily go over twelve hours without needing a wee. He'll go on a walk but at home he'd rather sprawl on the sofa and snore

Thanks so much all, this definitely makes me less concerned about wees. Much appreciated!

She pooed inside the house this morning. She had her morning walk, came back and had a good long wee in the garden. I let her potter about a bit more, then took her inside. Not long after she got the zoomies in the kitchen with my other dog, and that obviously got things properly moving. Just hoping we can crack this sooner rather than later!

She's being a puppy again and needs the ignore indoor poo and praise the outdoor poo system.
Going through rescue is really confusing. She will soon be a very good girl once she settles down. She is having to relearn everything.

We adopted a 4-year-ole ex-breeder at the end of October. She'd been in foster for a couple of weeks but had been using puppy pads, so we had to go completely back to basics. It was slow going at first (as she didn't have another dog to copy) but in the past three weeks we've only had one accident indoors and that was when I was distracted. She'll bark to go out for a poo but not for a wee, so I'm still having to take her out into the garden regularly. I've been trying to teach her to ring a little bell by the back door like our previous dogs have done, but she's a bit scared of it at the moment. We're getting there though - five weeks in, I'd say we're 90% there.

It's totally normal for rescue dogs to have accidents in the house - just treat her like you would a puppy and it will definitely click eventually.