Please help me with my puppies.... :(

dawnylou

Ok first of all a little bit of background info.

We have 2 puppies, both West Highland Terriers.
The oldest Kiki is just over a year, the youngest Odie is about 7 months.

My main problem is Odie....
Firstly he still gets up though the night and messes.
He goes to the same place almost every time - it can't be the smell though as I use a mixture of bleach and stardrops in boiled water to make sure it is cleaned thoroughly. But also he (for some reason) reverses while he does his business and therefore he gets it on the wall or door too!!!
Anyway he gets a dental chew for brekkie at about 9, a bowl of complete dog food for lunch at 12, a bowl of pedigree or some variation of tinned food for tea at 4.

Now he does his last poo (sorry!!) at around 9pm ish.
BUT he gets up through the night and goes again!!
I can't really feed him any earlier can I??

I have tried getting up through the night to catch him and put him out but I am always too late!!!

Also...he tends to eat his poo (sorry again!) how can I stop him doing this?
When he goes outside we make a huge fuss of him and give him a treat to distract him while we clean up before he gets to it, but through the night is a different matter....



Anyone have any advice please?

Also how to make both pups come to me when there is a distraction?
They come when I shout and I rewards them BUT if there is a dog on the other side of the fence for example they ignore me and run around the garden barking and seem to encourage each other!!

Sorry just looking for some hints really...

WeirdoMagnet

I'll answer quickly as I need to get on, so I hope it makes sense...

As he goes in the same place, it could be the smell. You need to use a solution of biological washing powder, which 'digests' the enzymes. Other cleaners don't do this, and also contain ammonia which may encourage them to go in the same place.

Feed - timing and type. I'd change their main feed times to breakfast and tea, giving your treat (if you wish) at lunchtime. That way his feed will be more evenly spread over the course of the day, where as at the moment, he's having two meals in a four hour period IYSWIM, and then he's got to poo it all out before bedtime. I'd also stick to one good quality complete food (eg Burns, Autarky, CSJ etc), rather than mixing complete and tinned. Also, how much are you feeding him? You say a 'bowl', but have you weighed it and are feeding according to the manufacturers guidelines? Maybe he's getting a bit too much?

To stop him eating his poo, you can add pineapple or grated courgette to his meals.

Recall Training - Click here for a good guide to train a steadfast recall.

Sorry for the hurried reply, but HTH!

Let us know how you get on.

Georgie

katiep_2

No advice about the toileting through the night, except try to get up earlier to catch it before it happens.

With the cleaning though, you need to do it with a biological detergent to get rid of the scent completely. I have a big box of tesco value biological washing powder just for this purpose that I disolve in a bowl of hot water.

dawnylou

Thanks Georgina - I will try him with the different meal times and see how that goes.
I weigh his food so he gets what is recommended.
The reasons I give him a mixture of food are 1 - so he won't bore eating the same thing all of the time and 2 - so he gets more benefit hopefully as different foods seem to have different vitamins etc.

Will feeding him pineapple not harm him in anyway at all?


Thanks both of you for the advice on washing powder, I will also try that too

lolarentt

Can you break the habit of the 'same place'? Can you block the area off, cover it, prevent him accessing? (You don't say where it is)

Does he get a walk before bedtime? This might encourage an earlier 'delivery'! Also the phasing out of the tinned food may help.....

Good luck!

dawnylou

No way to block it off. It is just the opposite end of the dining room.

They sometimes get a walk before bedtime if I feel up to it.
I haven't been well lately and I don't like to go out when it is dark.

Do you think it is worth removing the tinned food? May I ask why?

lolarentt

dawnylou wrote: »

Do you think it is worth removing the tinned food? May I ask why?

Only a feeling aquired from years of dog ownership/minding but tinned food seems to encourage more frequent bowel evacuation in our canine friends! We recently took on 2 adult border collies (mother and daughter) as their owner can no longer look after them and have moved them from 2 meals a day (tinned dog and home-cooked meat) plus snacks, to 1 meal a day complete dry dog food and this has made an amazing difference to their toilet habits. It took 2 weeks to gradually change their food (and we had a few days of "well if you wont eat it tough, that's all there is") but they are both happy healthy and enthusiastic eaters of dry food now.

WeirdoMagnet

Personally, I would stop using the tinned food, and use a complete dry dog food instead. I think the feeling is that dogs don't get bored with eating the same thing, but what I do is add a little bit of what we have, and in particular cook extra veg.

I'd still feed two meals - breakfast and tea, I know it works for some people, but I don't feel comfortable only giving one large meal, which must be lots to digest in one go, when it can be split into two.

pboae

I'd also agree with dropping the tinned food, especially if it's stuff like pedigree chum, which is pretty much junk food for dogs. On a good quality dried food they should produce a lot less poo overall, which should help too. If he's eating food with lots of filler in it, then he will producing a lot more poo and he might not be able to last overnight.

With regards eating his own poo, most (although not all) dogs learn to do this because they have been told off for messing in the house, or even worse had their nose rubbed in it. Even if the owner doesn't actually shout at them for it, the dog can often still sense they are in trouble, and that makes them anxious.

People think that by telling them off for it the dog will learn that pooing in the house is bad, but what they actually learn is that their owner finding poo in the house is bad. So they eat it to prevent that happening.

Feeding him pineapple should help, in that it will make it very unpalatable for him, but if he is doing it because he is anxious about getting told off it might make things worse. He will try and eat it anyway but it will probably just make him sick. Cleaning up poo is unpleasant, but it's better than cleaning up poo which has been vomited back up again.

aspinallkate

You will need to clean the area thoroughly to get rid of smells. Note that household cleaners do not get rid of all the proteins that we cannot smell. Do not use any cleaner with ammonia or bleach, as it will smell similar to the ammonia in urine and the puppy will identify it as a toilet area.

MoneySavingStudent_2

Maybe try making him go out later?
With our doggie she did that a couple of times when we took her outside at about 9:30.
So we changed it to about 10:45 to 11pm and it seems to do the trick. Because im always up quite late and my sister is up quite early. So from about midnight til 7am she cant go to the loo coz were all in bed. But its only a few hrs. And better then wen we took her out around 9 :-)