What am I doing wrong?!

NeverEver said:
he is very young to be part of the operation so to speak - he isnt trained yet ;) hence your problems.
train him NOT to eat the poo and until you cant, make sure he is supervised at all times, otherwise you are just setting him up to fail :(

ps i am on a croft with 22 ponies , various sheep and a lot of free range poultry. I do feel your pain!
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Yes, as I was typing I could already think of a few ways in which I can deal with this and still enjoy his company. I can leave him inside when we feed and poo-pick though he is actually quite helpful if we are doing something with the sheep and that is an excellent opportunity to do some training. It is also somehow easier for me to completely supervise him when we are doing sheep work as I am so aware of the potential issues there. I am probably too relaxed with him around the horses as they are all very polite to him and he to them so I take my eye off the ball. However, if he is getting less dog food, the treats I take out with me (part of his food ration) will help him to learn 'leave it' which I will start on with straight away.

Having had many other breeds of dog over the years it is strange that I have never had such an enthusiastic poo-eater before!!
 
CorvusCorax said:
Think about the size of his internal organs and think about the amount of food he is getting every day, and amend accordingly, do NOT feed by the guide on the packet, feed by your eye.
My large adult dogs are fed 2-3 times a day and do 2 poos a day, three max.
One of mine also won't go unless he's had a good run to get him moving.
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It is quite astonishing, looking at him how much he wants to eat and how much comes out the other end. Slightly baffling to be honest but from today I have reduced his feed (back to the packet based weights) and will see how he gets on. Bless him, he is totally brilliant but I don't think that he is a veterinary study in poo production: it is clearly something to do with the way I am managing his feed...
 
palo1 said:
Yes, as I was typing I could already think of a few ways in which I can deal with this and still enjoy his company. I can leave him inside when we feed and poo-pick though he is actually quite helpful if we are doing something with the sheep and that is an excellent opportunity to do some training. It is also somehow easier for me to completely supervise him when we are doing sheep work as I am so aware of the potential issues there. I am probably too relaxed with him around the horses as they are all very polite to him and he to them so I take my eye off the ball. However, if he is getting less dog food, the treats I take out with me (part of his food ration) will help him to learn 'leave it' which I will start on with straight away.

Having had many other breeds of dog over the years it is strange that I have never had such an enthusiastic poo-eater before!!
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oh we've always had poo eaters and many 'poopers' like yours too ;)
 
he is lovely, but he is eating too much,which is why he is pooing so much.. whether it is what you are feeding or the horse poo. some dogs cant cope with eating horse poo so you need to stop him doing that. when i took my puppy poo picking i had him on a lead attached to my belt so i had both hands free for poo picking and therefore he was close to me and i could stop him from eating it. he did manage to get a tiny bit if i was a bit slow but mostly i managed ok. i would keep him at 3 small meals.. my dogs still get 2 meals a day, they have their main meal in the morning and a smaller meal at night, may be worth giving a smaller feed at night...but i think the horse poo may be the main problem....
 
It does sound like the horse poo is the problem but my thinking about giving his last meal later was that if he is waiting from 7.00pm until the small hours of the morning, if he eats later he might naturally be able to last until you let him out first thing. As with everything, you need to set him up to succeed.
 
splashgirl45 said:
he is lovely, but he is eating too much,which is why he is pooing so much.. whether it is what you are feeding or the horse poo. some dogs cant cope with eating horse poo so you need to stop him doing that. when i took my puppy poo picking i had him on a lead attached to my belt so i had both hands free for poo picking and therefore he was close to me and i could stop him from eating it. he did manage to get a tiny bit if i was a bit slow but mostly i managed ok. i would keep him at 3 small meals.. my dogs still get 2 meals a day, they have their main meal in the morning and a smaller meal at night, may be worth giving a smaller feed at night...but i think the horse poo may be the main problem....
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This is what I was going to suggest tether him to you so not only does he learn not to eat poo but also leearns where your feet are and how to keep from being trodden on. He is being trained while on his tether if you want to free play with him then do that while you are in the garden or out for your walk. We free feed our dogs always have and have never had a fat dog or a hard to huse train one. As I said above boys have been harder to toilet train than girls but all were clean day and night by 12 weeks
 
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Thank you so much for all this! Yes, I think horse poo eating and too much grub generally MUST be the cause of all the excess poo. Of course today when I have been working on keeping him away from poo and took him for a walk with the sheep so that I could instruct the 'leave' he wasn't much interested in sheep poo!! I did poo pick without him this evening too. We have not had any 'additional' poos - only the ones I would expect as a result of legit meal-times so maybe it will be a very simple fix!! I am going to stay with his current food for a week whilst I re-jig meal times, quantities and instigate a 'no poo-eating' regime then will see where I am at. If no significant progress has been made then I will probably think about a diet change. Bless him, he has been so good today and we have had no accidents at all :) :)
 
Pearlsasinger said:
It does sound like the horse poo is the problem but my thinking about giving his last meal later was that if he is waiting from 7.00pm until the small hours of the morning, if he eats later he might naturally be able to last until you let him out first thing. As with everything, you need to set him up to succeed.
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Agree. Also 7pm until 8am is an awfully long time for a young pup to go without food. I’m surprised he’s not waking you up early for his breakfast. At 6am after peeing/pooing my pups would be fed. Another feed at 2pm and final feed at 9pm. 🙂
 
Clodagh said:
Mine have always had their last meal at 4.30pm, so three meals would be 6.30, 12.30 and 4.30
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This would work well for me and is more or less what I am going to try for a week. :) I was delighted to find no poo in the utility room this morning and no poo eating when out first thing either. He did seem delighted to be snoozing in his dog bed too. He is crated in the car so won't 'forget' all about that and I am confident that if he ever needs to be crated in the future that he will be happy and confident with that but it is nice to see him relaxed and clean this morning!!
 
Having just seen the vet for an slight eye soreness I am reassured that all is 'normal'. Vet (who I like and trust) thinks that poo-eating is the problem. She is super happy with his weight and general health and checked his tummy for soreness/bloated feeling and the 1 eye which has had a few days of gunk but with no soreness. Mild conjunctivitis that looks like it is clearing up thankfully. He has doubled his weight in the last 6 weeks and now weighs 10 kg! Vet also felt it would be perfectly fine to make the mid-day meal quite small and feed the last meal at about 5pm. Of course, he has had no accidents and no 'additional' poo again today so feel like I was completely blind to the problem until consulting HHO. Very grateful for this as although a very obvious cause, living here in my bubble meant I just couldn't see it. Very positive though that I now HAVE to train a 'leave it'! Happy days...:) :)
 
Firstly, he is way to cute for his own good!
Secondly, that many poos indicates over feeding, I think you may have fallen into the same trap as I did with The Peril. She is on Eden, so good quality 80/20 dried food. But, she was too lean so I kept increasing the amount I was feeding so she would gain weight, long story short, she ended up on approx twice the recommended amount for a dog of her weight and activity level (24kg, Olympic athlete) but was still losing weight and was pooing 5 times a day. We had her checked at the vets for metabolic issues, nothing wrong there so in desperation I contacted Eden who were blooming marvellous. They suggested cutting her food right back to the recommended amount then very slowly increasing until we had reached a level where she was gaining the weight she had lost. I admit I was dubious that this approach would work, but it did. Seems they know what they are talking about! She now has the recommended allowance having put on the weight that she had lost and looks amazingly well. She has two poos per day. It seems that I was overfeeding protein which meant that she stopped absorbing the goodness from her food and it was just passing through, although she never had loose or runny poos to suggest to me that this was the case. Please don't lecture me for being a bad owner, I beat myself up about this for long enough so consider myself well flogged and it is not a mistake I will ever make again. Peril is a Labrador btw so not a breed known for their light frame!
 
An update! Careful management of time in the field and working on the 'leave it' - which has been astonishingly effective 90% of the time as well as a re-jig of meal times has meant that pup has now been totally clean in the house since Thursday last week (5 nights & 6 days). I am not saying we have cracked it but he is now also signalling that he wants to go out, has clearly identified his preferred place to wee and poo, he goes really promptly and it 'feels' like he has actually understood and can manage to stay clean in the house. We also now have what I reckon is a normal amount of poo for a 17/18 week old pup. Phew!! To say I am absolutely delighted with this progress is an understatement. Thanks for the suggestions and advice - super effective!!

ETA I have also taken away his crate and put a huge plastic dog bed in it's place: he is very happy with that so I wonder if a part of the problem was that his crate felt too small for him and that was stressful. My older hound has also had her crate (which housed her normal bed) taken away and both are very relaxed together.
 
Thanks for the update, good news!

Just in case any-one else reads the thread looking for ideas in the future: We have 2x 81/2 week old Lab pups, who are fed at 7.30 am, 12.30 pm, 6.oopm and 11.00pm. They are crated overnight and for 'quiet' periods during the day. They are taken outside immediately after meals and stay out until they have poo'ed. They have a bed at the back of the crate and puppy pads at the front, they have not poo'ed overnight since we got them.
 
Yes, it is interesting! I have had weeks to ponder the digestive system of puppies now and as long as there is a very clear routine I would say it seems that pup often wants a poo about 20 minutes after a meal. However, of course they are growing and changing at a fantastic rate and not always evenly so what seems so one week is different the next. I appear to have a routine now of wee & poo first thing at 6.00 am, small breakfast at 8.00 am, small lunch at 1.00 and then poo at about 2.00 then (thankfully!) no more poo till after tea at about 5pm. Last poo might be at 10.00. It still seems that pup needs 4 poos a day but he is on 3 meals. Rather amusingly, my older dog, who has only pooed twice a day for the last 10 years appears to be following the puppy schedule with 3 poos a day now but I am confident that she will return to 2 a day as he gets older. I feel so much more relaxed and that I am able to help pup now I can predict things a bit better. :) :)
 
amymay said:
Interested to know why people take dogs out for a poo after they’ve eaten...
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Because it works! As they grow they develop more control and don't need to poo almost immediately after eating but by then, if you've done it right, they will be trained to go outside, rather than in the house.:)
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Thanks for the update, good news!

Just in case any-one else reads the thread looking for ideas in the future: We have 2x 81/2 week old Lab pups, who are fed at 7.30 am, 12.30 pm, 6.oopm and 11.00pm. They are crated overnight and for 'quiet' periods during the day. They are taken outside immediately after meals and stay out until they have poo'ed. They have a bed at the back of the crate and puppy pads at the front, they have not poo'ed overnight since we got them.
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I should have also said and no-one has been getting up during the night to let them out! I need my sleep to be able to keep up with them during the day! They are quiet overnight but wake up as soon as the first person comes downstairs. They get breakfast as soon as we get up.
 
Great update.
As an aside, I didn't realise that people fed their dogs three times a day unless they were working them. Having owned mostly smallish terriers I struggle to get their meagre portions to divide into two meals!
 
DabDab said:
Great update.
As an aside, I didn't realise that people fed their dogs three times a day unless they were working them. Having owned mostly smallish terriers I struggle to get their meagre portions to divide into two meals!
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It is advised to feed smaller more frequent meals to breeds which are more susceptible to bloat, deep chested breeds but also barrel chested like Rotties - as PAS has mentioned.

Some dogs benefit from more frequent meals as they vomit bile when the stomach is empty, often in a morning after a long fast during the night (bilious vomiting syndrome).
 
Back again! Little red dog is now just over 5 months and is fantastic bless him but over the last week he has been pooing in the house overnight again :( He is fed his afternoon meal at 5pm, goes out for a poo afterwards and then only wants a wee last thing before bed at 10,00 ish pm. He has grown a lot and is in good condition so I wonder if he is now getting too much to eat. He is not eating horse or sheep poo now in any quantity at all thankfully so it's not that problem!! I am going to experiment with feeding earlier and feeding later as well as slightly reducing his amount of grub. In every other way he is extraordinarily straight forward and I know it sounds horribly gushing (proud dog owner syndrome here!!) he is the most loyal dog I have ever had. I just love him!
 
yep double check how much you are feeding him and if you cut back just for a week to break the habit it again it wont harm him. We have a new springer pup and im giving myself a dose of my own advice today and have realised ive been feeding her far too much!!
 
i only use the feed instructions on the dog food as a rough guide at the beginning and always end up feeding quite a bit less and judge whether to increase or decrease depending on the dog's weight... dont forget if you are using treats for training you need to allow for them in the food calculations..
 
Well he has been super energetic today but I have left tea time till 8pm poor chap. I will try that for a few days and see what happens - that is the time I have usually fed my older dog so could work well. :)
 
Is he still on the high protein feed?

Ted was an absolute nightmare for night pooing until about 12-18 months :oops::rolleyes:

Daft question but have you totally scrubbed everywhere down? Ted would be clean through the night at our house, but anytime he had to sleep over at the in laws, he would poop...he seemed to think that it was acceptable there, but not at home for some reason. Absolutely blitzed the place in cleaner and he reigned it in a bit...
 
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