My puppy’s disgusting midnight snacks!

[Colliedogowner]

Has anyone else experienced this or have advice?
In my house we have an unpleasant midnight snack situation with our puppy, who is pooping and peeing in her crate once each night and eating it all like a bloody scooby snack. she makes no sound or fuss at all about needing to go, the only way we know it’s happened is because she’s whined a tiny bit afterwards and we’ve gone in to see the remnants. She does literally go for the whole feast 😢
we give her outside visits regularly, with the last one around 10pm. We lift her water no later than 8pm and she’s on 3 meals (7am, noon and around 5pm - we’ve gone early in the hope she’ll be empty at bed….) She’s very snoozy in the evenings and she does pee right before bed but she won’t poop. We make sure she’s active, all the sensible things. We set alarms to take her out during the night but when we do, she’ll go outside but doesn’t do anything. All these ‘accidents’ have happened between 12-2am so we’ve set alarms to pre-empt it (no joy as she doesn’t go)
She’s good during the day, a very high % of all pees and poops are outside and we don’t use puppy pads indoors. She likes her crate, eats in it and generally sleeps well in it too with very little fuss (we’ve not started ‘out of the house’ seperation training yet and I’m sure when we do she’ll get a bit noisy.

She’s 10.5 weeks old and has been with us 6 nights so far. She’s a border collie and did not have access to outdoors at her original home, and she was not toilet or crate trained at her original home either.

the weather has been pretty bad so we’ve now erected a big parasol at the back door to keep the area dry for her so she feels more encouraged when she does go out. We also have a square meter of artificial grass which has arrived today, which we’ll put down in the hopes that she likes that (we have only concrete and soil in our garden unfortunately, no grass).

a trainer has suggested putting her on 4 meals a day instead - same quantity but spaced out more, 7am, 11am, 3pm and 7pm.

any advice or suggestions would be hugely appreciated as we don’t want this to become a life-long bad habit!

5pm to 7am is a very long time to expect a 10 week old puppy to go without food - I would maybe add in a snack at bedtime as well as moving her final meal of the day a bit later - if she's expected to go 14 hours without food, she's probably starving at 2am, bless her.

Also, please don't lift water at night - it's part of the animal welfare act that animals should have access to fresh, clean water 24/7.

At 10.5 weeks

They should be on 4 meals a day
You should be taking them out at least once to toilet during the night

Jesus. I just saw you’re taking her water away. That’s appalling.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfect-Puppy-Take-Britains-Number-ebook/dp/B008258YKI?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mGGEa8wpuCrwjJ5CXLj22QcNDW9ieTPLkvUu8ml9CfUrtUrZkVlGA3jRLG5IHD-ivRRaGCYjxSL9bKVmn4YKANi2ixomaAF-8mkiztIijdNyvZZrCW7o7SlwfdkecPbRa2LduYOXRwVGCmiLEft-5R48SQ6tAse3vijtz0YBATexB45xCBTjj8N3U4cKc1ZwBNaAX4WT6p_xpu3E7oC7kKj4ZGjeGfNYSFsjL94l5Lo.9QCtTmhyeXoUaVtpHoYXSAYhlbEZUBbeV5XZwhUyR28&dib_tag=AUTHOR

Here

My pup used to do this, a lot of them see their mum trying to keep the space clean by eating up the poop and end up copying her. Could also be something missing in the diet they are trying to find.

Its difficult but try not to have a reaction to it, as they then start to do it in secret and will sneak away to poop and eat if you over react.

I saw a video once suggesting an ice cube on their bottom makes them instantly need to poop. I didn't have the heart to try this, but it snows a lot here and when I told my dog to sit whilst in the snow... the poop came pretty quickly 😅

The worst times are when they poop in the middle of the night, eat it, then vomit it back up. Ddog did it infront of my high powered fan, in my 30c bedroom at 2am one evening last summer. 🤢

How big is her crate? Too big and they separate it into “bedroom” and “toilet”. It should be just big enough to go inside, turn around, lie down comfortably. If it’s too big you can get crate dividers to section off space as she grows.

Leave her with water overnight. 5pm-7am without food is fine.

No advice but once she is toilet trained she won't do it. My spaniel as a puppy ate any shit she could get her paws on and once ate cat shit and then vommed it back up. Was vile cleaning that up.

Here's an article on coprophagia which mentions something I heard from a guy who bred working sheepdogs - add pineapple to their feed (i think he said juice), apparently it makes the poo distasteful

www.purina.co.uk/articles/dogs/health/digestion/dog-eating-faeces-coprophagia

Agree with more meals throughout the day and always having water present.

The poo eating I would blame on the breeder. Bitches will clean up after puppies. If the breeder did not have great hygiene and not clean up after the puppies then the dogs and puppies have to do it themselves.

Set an alarm to let the puppy out once in the night (before the time they usually poo) so they can not practice the behaviour.

Very very unlikely to be down to a dietary issue unless you are feeding really rubbish food.

You can waste your money adding in pineapple and all the other suggestions that you will hear but I promise you it will not make any difference at all.

Make sure your puppy does not get left in a situation with poo in their bed and they will not need to eat it.

At that age a puppy unfortunately can't be expected to hold on all night. Just like babies you need to get up and put them out to the toilet during the night and then as they get older they'll learn to hold it.

That's too long for such a young puppy to go without food. She needs 4 meals a day.

Please don't take her water away. That's cruel.

I agree, give her 4 meals and never take her water away!
I don't know how your sleeping arrangements are, but is it possible to have her crate beside your bed or similar?
You should then be able to get her outside as soon as she waks up.

I would also suggest you tell her good girl toilet & a little treat when she goes in the garden during daytime - not at night, this needs to be done as boring as possible!

She must always have access to water. Please leave that down.

As Pp have said, four meals a day is appropriate up to at least 6 months. Mine always have 4th meal 'supper' around 8:30/9 and then (still do!) have a bonio or biscuit at bedtime.

Try this before you go down the coprophagia route, especially if she only eats it at night. Info on that delightful behaviour here: www.thekennelclub.org.uk/health-and-dog-care/health/health-and-care/a-z-of-health-and-care-issues/why-does-my-dog-eat-poop/

I'm surprised folk saying leave water out, we've always put ours to bed without access to water overnight or else there'd be puddles all over the place when they're tiny. We also fed ours 3 times a day not 4.

Op, like everything with puppies it'll be a phase and she'll grow out of. Carry on house traing with middle of the night garden visits and she'll stop soon enough.

She's gorgeous 😍

@Janiie it's part of the animal welfare act that they must have access to fresh, clean water at all times. It's one of the "five freedoms".

Another voice to the please don't remove water camp.

My pup came to me eating her own poo still does once in a blue moon but very rare now

Have you considered adding a small amount of fresh pineapple to pups food?
It changes the enzyme in the poo and they don't want to eat it

I had great success with this

You were wrong to do this.
Just to clarify.

There is not a chance I'd knave a bowl of water in a crate with a puppy overnight. They're up early anyway so have plenty of opportunity to drink.

Ditto when they are full grown tbh. Fresh water available all day, absolutely not all night unless you want to spend your life letting a howling dog out for a wee at 2am.

You're going against the basic rules of animal welfare doing this, just so you're aware.

Even the RSPCA say that dogs need to have continuous access to water as an absolute bare minimum.

I don't know any dog owner who leaves food or water out all night for their pets.

I disagree with the rspca then. Of course they need a continuous supply of water when they're up, not even they are going to bed.

It's not just the RSPCA - it's actually part of the animal welfare act that they should have access to water 24/7.

I don't know anyone who doesn't leave water down 24/7 for their animals. All mine have access to fresh, clean water whenever they want it - during the day at home, in the car, on walks and at night.

ALL of my animals always have water avail 24/7.
it is cruel not to do so.
i don’t know who you know, but no-one i know doesn't leave their animals with water overnight.

Frankly you shouldn’t have animals if you can’t give them BASIC care. You can buy bowl holders for the sides of the crate. It turns my stomach to think animals are being treated this way.

This is typical of owners trying to make their own lives easier at the detriment of the animal.

My dogs always have acess to water. They don't have to go out night. Obviously as puppies they had to, but that's part of having a dog. Mine go for last toilet 10-11pm and then again at 6am or 8tish on a weekend.

My little rescue dog didn't have 24/7 acess to water in her pervious home. (I know because I took her off an ex friend)
In the first few months she would gozzle up all available water, be sick and drink some more.

Luckily she's now learned to pace herself - most of the time!