# Feeding schedule to stop night time pooing?



## UKpoodle (Jul 22, 2015)

We've just got another standard poodle puppy, Gustav, he is 4 months old and a lovely boy, doing well with toilet training during the day, however I'm having issues with him soiling his crate nearly every night. He is currently on a dry food from tails.com. It's a hypoallergenic kibble which is made specifically for him and we feed him the advised amount, divided into 3 meals a day (7am, 12pm and 5.30pm). He has a few puppy treats a day, but nothing after 5.30pm and no water after 7pm. 
He sometimes goes all day without needing a poo, but always goes outside for a poo every evening (sometimes 2 poos!) but every morning I am waking up to a poo in his crate. Luckily they are solid so it's not too hard to clean up and he's still small enough to be dunked in the sink for a quick clean up, but i need to put a stop to this before it becomes a habit. He's in a small crate so it's not like there's enough room for him to do it in one end away from his sleeping area.
Having looked online there seems to be conflicting advice, some people suggest feeding last thing at night before they go to bed as apparently the amount of time it takes for them to digest their food means they won't need to go until you let them out in the morning. Other people say to feed their last meal early afternoon or even to feed just once in the morning (don't think this sounds good for a puppy though?).
I'm at a loss as I never had this problem with Gunther, he went through the night accident free from the day we got him at 15 weeks old!


----------



## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

You could try adding a teaspoonful of sweetcorn to one meal, and watching for it to reappear - that will give you an idea as to how long it takes him to fully digest a meal, and help you to decide the best timing for meals. Have you any idea what sort of time he soils the crate? Soon after bedtime? Very early in the morning? Perhaps he needs a night time trip outside - 4 months is still very young.


----------



## UKpoodle (Jul 22, 2015)

Thanks fjm, the sweetcorn thing is a good idea (my husbands sat here laughing at the thought of me dissecting Gustav's poo by torchlight in the garden....!!)
As for the time, I think it's happening early morning as it looks quite 'fresh'. I get up at about 6.30am and there's no wee in his crate and a lot of the time he doesn't even have a wee first thing in the morning and waits until after his morning feed/drink so he has good bladder control, but unfortunately the same can't be said for his bowels!


----------



## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

I'd move the middle meal and the last meal up one hour earlier. The last meal could even be an hour and a half earlier. Make that one a small meal and take him for a walk a couple hours after that...just a nice, walk to get things moving. See if he will go by bedtime. I feed my dogs at about 4:30 in the afternoon for their last meal of the day. No treats after that...at least not that amounts to anything much. Be sure and watch when you take him outside for his last potty trip which should be as late as possible...as late as you can stay up. Take a flash light if necessary to see if he goes poop. lol. I hope this will work. Hopefully, he'll grow out of this. (Is his poo of good consistency?) (gosh...I remember discussing these same types of details with other young mothers years ago when our kids were very young. hahaha)


----------



## oshagcj914 (Jun 12, 2016)

Keep in mind that he's still a baby dog. 5:30 pm to 7 am seems like a long time to go without food for a puppy that young, so I would not feed him dinner earlier. He just doesn't have much bowel control yet. Set an alarm and take him out during the night, then gradually make it later and later until he isn't going out during the night any more. Just because you had another dog that could hold it all night doesn't mean this one will be able to, they're all different.


----------



## UKpoodle (Jul 22, 2015)

Thanks for all the advice. In answer to the question...yes his poos are solid so it's not a case of diarrhoea that he can't hold in. He doesn't always poo during the day, but then he usually goes twice in the evening before bed. Last night he had his last meal (a small one) at 5.30pm then had a poo before bed at 11pm. I set my alarm for 3.30am to take him out and he had another poo, but then I woke up this morning to find he'd still gone in his crate! Very strange (and incredibly frustrating!).


----------



## oshagcj914 (Jun 12, 2016)

That is frustrating! Maybe he needs to go it twice? Is his crate small enough that he can only stand up and turn around?


----------



## UKpoodle (Jul 22, 2015)

oshagcj914 said:


> That is frustrating! Maybe he needs to go it twice? Is his crate small enough that he can only stand up and turn around?


Yes his crate is a small one, like you say just enough room for standing and turning round. It's almost like he's saving up all his poos for a 'dirty protest' every night! Ha ha, if I didn't laugh I'd cry....!! Really at a loss with this one.


----------



## zooeysmom (Jan 3, 2014)

Frosty is 4 months old and I feed him at 7:30am, 1:30pm, and 7:30pm. He is down to pooping 2 or 3 times/day. He used to always go before bedtime, but now he doesn't go after his evening meal. He goes first thing in the morning at 7am when I let him out. 

Puppies this age need to be fed 3 times/day or free-fed. I also allow water access 24/7--he likes to drink in the middle of the night sometimes. Could you try rescheduling your meals and allowing water access full time? Maybe that will get things moving better during the day so he won't have to go at night? I'd also add a spoonful of canned pumpkin to all of his meals. 

Good luck!


----------



## UKpoodle (Jul 22, 2015)

zooeysmom said:


> Frosty is 4 months old and I feed him at 7:30am, 1:30pm, and 7:30pm. He is down to pooping 2 or 3 times/day. He used to always go before bedtime, but now he doesn't go after his evening meal. He goes first thing in the morning at 7am when I let him out.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Viking Queen (Nov 12, 2014)

You could use baked sweet potato (yams) or any baked yellow squash, if those are available. Will do the same as canned pumpkin. It is providing moisture And fiber. I would, as others have said, allow water access up to bed time. He needs moisture to move poo through his system....this may be why he does not poo during the day.

Best of luck.

VQ


----------



## UKpoodle (Jul 22, 2015)

Thank you everybody for all the advice, I will move his last meal to bedtime, allow him water at night and add a bit of sweet potato to his morning meal to try and get those poos moving during the day! Hopefully this will make for an accident free night and a stress free morning!!


----------



## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Canned pumpkin is occasionally available around Thanksgiving in supermarkets near large US bases - a friend in Harrogate has found it for me in the past. Baked sweet potatoes or butternut squash are cheaper, but more work. Green beans are another good source of fibre, and my dogs love them. But if his faeces are a good consistency I would suspect that his digestion is simply running to a time frame that makes it hard for him to hold overnight. Once he is old enough to drop the midday meal the problem may resolve by itself - till then I would take him out in the early hours, or give him access to a puppy pad.


----------



## marialydia (Nov 23, 2013)

There is one clue to what is going on that might be important: that he doesn't poop much or at all during the day. Ideally, this is more what you want. Conversely, the whole process should be slowed down at night while they are sleeping and not moving as much. So perhaps it's due to a lack of water making it harder to get the poop moving on out before bedtime?

So just maybe since you are feeding dry kibble, there is a bit of dehydration going on, that makes it harder to move the poop along in his system during the day. You could, for example, add some water to the kibble, letting it make a bit of "gravy". I've done this when my dogs seem dehydrated with good results. 

Also, giving water a bit later in the evening might help him in getting the system moving along. He seems not to have a problem with urination at night, so that system may be further developed. If you gave water until, say, 8PM, and took him out right after that, and again immediately before bed, that might also have an impact. 

Good luck with the experimentation, and let us know how it works.


----------



## shell (Jul 10, 2015)

Addison goes out between 5:45-6 am and normally poos and she also poos between 4-5 pm. I feed her twice a day. I have always fed twice a day. Now, when she was a puppy, I would come home for lunches mid day and give her a snack-but it wasn't a full meal.

I think we might have had a couple of instances of pooping in the crate but it was not a regular thing. Two meals a day, two instances of pooping for us. When she was younger I would stay outside with her until she pooped and then make a fuss over the pooping. 

I also used to get up in the middle of the night to take her out and stopped that after about two months or so of her being home. I think.


----------



## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

I had a problem with Cammie needing to poop in the middle of the night, sometimes 2 or 3 times. The problem went on for several months before I finally figured out what was causing it. I tried changing dinner time and making very sure that she went out just before bed. But none of that helped. Finally my vet recommended switching her to a higher calorie food. So I tried that and it worked. I don't think it was actually the high calories that helped. I now think that she had some sort of a reaction to one or more of the ingredients in her former food. The food that caused the problem was Natural Balance Vegetarian Formula. (No problems with my other two dogs--just Cammie.) I switched her to Open Farm turkey/chicken recipe and the problem cleared up right away. Since then, we have tried V-Dog kibble and Open Farm's whitefish recipe. She is fine with all of those. Just not Natural Balance Vegetarian.

Cammie was an adult when this started. It may well be entirely unrelated to your problem, but perhaps worth seeing if you could try a different food.


----------



## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

How's your pup doing? I forgot temporarily about this thread. And I guess my advice isn't so good. You know...I forgot that your dog was such a young puppy between the time I read the first part of your post and the time I answered. LOL. I'm getting seriously addled. Although I would feed not so early as I do my adult dogs, when asleep at night, body systems kind of slow down so food isn't as critical too late at night. But if you find this is working better for your pup to keep him from pooping in his crate, that is good. I do hope things are leveling out. It is no fun to get up in the middle of the night, is it. Maurice, my 3.5 year old poodle woke me up the other night and had diarrhea outside and in his crate. Oy. I fed him something weird that day that must have caused this. So it's not just puppies. Once in a while older dogs have this unfortunate issues as well. I hope things are getting worked out.


----------

