# Please stop pooing in my kitchen



## chinchillafuzzy (Feb 11, 2017)

I am not an expert so I look forward to seeing what the more experienced trainers have to say, but in my opinion I think she has made a habit out of this behavior. If I was in this situation I would try to disrupt this behavior by crating her as soon as you get back inside from your walk. I would leave her in there for 20-30 mins then take her straight back outside for another 10-15 mins or so. If she still doesn't go I would repeat this cycle until she does go. It will probably be time consuming for the first few days but I would hope that pretty quickly she would learn that the only option she has is going outside (unless she wants to go in the crate - hopefully that doesn't happen.) Good luck, I hope that you get some other good advice here to help curb this behavior!


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## Aberdeen00 (Jan 8, 2018)

Will she do it right in front of you? If not I suggest maybe keep her tethered to you until you can get her back on schedule. How soon do y’all take her for a walk after she has eaten? I have had this happen when we have a disruption in our routine. We have to keep things pretty consistent or they turn into hooligans lol, they go out about 1 or 2 hours after eating. This is the best way to figure when they will need to potty. The crate would also work as most dogs won’t eliminate there! It definitely seems behavioral as y’all are keeping it free of scent and it’s always at the same time. 

Edit:realized she is a puppy. Make that like 10 or 20 minutes after eating lol You know your dog best! 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Sounds like a habit to me, too - walk, home, poop, settle down - although it could be that it takes the full 20 minutes of exercise to get her bowels moving at that time of day. I would try taking her out for five minutes, home for two, then back out and not come in until she has pooped. And when she does, have a party with the best treats ever. Once she has the message that doing it outside works much better than in skip the first two steps, but still stay out with her till she has done it. And I would put it on cue - choose a suitable word and say it every time she goes, until the association is strong enough to act as a trigger.


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

It probably is habit and the advice given above is excellent.

I just wanted to add several ideas. Could it be a texture issue? My tpoo years ago hated grass - don't know why because she played with the kids on grass. She would walk on the sidewalk and step two inches onto grass to potty then quickly hop off. Many dogs refuse to potty on concrete if they are only used to grass.

Second, dogs have different potty habits - my current minipoo makes what DH and I jokingly call a bifurcated poop - in that she has a BM and it looks normal and complete, then she will walk 10-15 feet away and have another BM. We always make certain we have two poop bags handy. She also doesn't normally have a BM without a nice walk. Could you have expected Kit to have the same pattern as your other dogs - and maybe she has a different, less common pattern? Maybe she requires more time outside walking? Or some other exciting activity such as playing fetch to loosen the bowels?


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I agree that this has become a habit (not anything more nefarious). I think you have already gotten good advise but will add the potty on command idea so you can tell her to go before you bring her back in the house after the evening walk.


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

She does not poo right in front of us. This is definitely becoming a habitual thing. We had tried to crate her and take her down after another 30 min but still no poops. We suspect the following reasons as to why she is doing this
1. The weather got really cold and she would whine to be let out. She really enjoys super cold weather and it has been in the 30s at night. She would cry to be let out and she does absolutely nothing. She would do this multiple times a day. We thought the crying was because she needed to potty but she just want to sit outside and meet strangers.

2. I had a theory she does not like to poo in front of people because she had been yelled at for pooing inside. She always does it in the kitchen when we aren’t watching. 
3. Other than the cold weather two more thing happened: 1. We switched her food because blue buffalo was giving her diarrhea so we had originally been blaming the food. Now we switched to a food that agrees and her stool is quite firm. 2. My parents Maltese moved in with us which added to my stress. Unfortunately, I have to watch him until spring. I’m not sure this is the reason since they get along. 

The multiple BM is something I am accustomed to because my pug does that. She would poo two to three times during an outing. I think with Kit it is something else. The texture of the floor might be an issue because Kit also hate grass but will reluctantly pee and poo on it. Seems kinda odd for a dog that is born in a barn to hate grass. She will refuse to walk on it if it is wet. For a long time, she would poo on gravel or the sidewalk. This might be a thing about this breed because my previous maremma was also prissy about grass. Sahara didn’t use grassy areas that other dogs been on. It had to be fresh grass. Typically after a storm, we have to force Kit on the grass and she walks as if the ground is hot lava. She will tiptoe and skip around. 

If I had to guess, the main reason is the temperature change and being afraid to poo in front of us because she’s been yelled at so many times. I suspect she is afraid of pooing while on a leash particularly in front of DH. Kit is never unattended in the yard because she is a digger and likes to roam. The food change is definitely when all of this started. We have been taking her out 5-6 times a day and the problem still persist. We also tried crating her with a chew but she barks like crazy as soon as we leave the home. My guess is that she is ok being crated while someone is still around to let her out. We don’t want to anger our neighbors and we let her out after 30 min. It is typically when we are out of the house that she does the deed in the kitchen.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I think you know what the problem is - she doesn't want to poop in front of you because it will make you cross. That is a rather different one to resolve...


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

snow0160 said:


> Kit has a pooping problem. Every day she goes for a 20 min evening walk and comes home. Within 10 min she poos in our kitchen. She does nothing while outside and does it almost immediately upon coming back in.
> 
> What does this mean? It is always the kitchen as well. She does this consistently after every evening walk. We've tried everything from enzyme cleaner to giving her treats when she goes outside, and we even took her to the vet to see if she has worms. No, she doesn't and she has been on trifexis since 8 weeks. I'm running out of ideas because I think it is a behavioral problem. We've been using nature's miracle hardwood floor enzyme cleaner. What should I do? Is it because she isn't spayed? We are supposed to wait until she comes into heat which is taking forever.


Sounds like the walk gets her bowels moving. I've had dogs before who will not potty on a leash. Could you let her out into the yard after the walk to see if she can take care of her business before coming back inside?

It definitely has nothing to do with the fact that she isn't spayed. Is the kitchen near a door outside? That would be one possible reason that she chooses that location to poop, as opposed to another spot in the house. Other reasons would be that she feels that the rest of the house is more of her "living area" and she is trying to do it outside of that area.


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

CharismaticMillie said:


> . Other reasons would be that she feels that the rest of the house is more of her "living area" and she is trying to do it outside of that area.




Ironically, she loves to eat off the kitchen floor. She would sit under my feet when I chop up kale. She is the only dog I’ve known that loves greens. You’d figure that you don’t poo where you eat but she does. The kitchen isn’t located near the door to the outside either.


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## chinchillafuzzy (Feb 11, 2017)

Here is an idea that I just remembered, one that you may think is gross but I will share it just in case it could possibly be of some help. I read long ago about a trainer who when he was potty training puppies to poop he would use a paper match (not a wooden one which could have sharp edges!) and stick it in the anus when he knew that the puppy would need to poop and he had the puppy in the right location for pooping. The puppy would try to push out the paper match and start pooping in the process. 

I know Kit is a large fully grown dog, so I am thinking you would either need to use a little stack of paper matches, or something else that could be safe - like maybe a q tip cut in half? Then you could praise heavily and use lots of treats. I have never tried this, and it may be a horrible idea, but I just remembered it from long ago and thought I would share. Honestly they make little baby enemas that would probably work great for this too. You could just use one at the beginning of the walk, and I bet by the end she will have gone. A week of doing that and maybe a new habit will have formed for her, and if she is rewarded heavily it may be something that she is no longer scared to do in front of you on the walk.


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## Click-N-Treat (Nov 9, 2015)

Matchsticks work. We used the same trick with our stubborn Boston Francis who thought the laundry room and our bathroom were poop spots. Once you get over the shock and ew gross factor, it works. Paper matches, since Kit is big, you might need two. Wet the paper ends in your mouth a little, slide them halfway up the poop shoot. Out you go. Wait for the poop, praise like crazy. Yes, this is gross and yes it is embarrassing the first few times, but you get over it and it works. Some people use the sulfur end to cause more irritation, but I never found it necessary. For more info. https://tythedogguy.com/2015/02/18/potty-training-with-the-matchstick-trick/


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

This reminds me of every time I took Kit to the vet. The first thing they do is use the thermometer. The last few times we took her, it was for her UTI. She had a panic attack when they shoved the thermometer up the rear. You should see the expression in her eyes. It is like a Scooby Doo expression of terror. LOL At our next appointment, she even remembered what happened and stuck her butt under the bench and would not come out. We had to give her so much bacon treats to have her turn around and let the vet tech take her temperature. 

So far today, no poops inside. This is a lucky day! We have taken her out four times today. Given our experience at the vet, I am uncertain I want to push my luck with the matchestick.


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

I hope you can have many more lucky days, because that is the best reinforcement - a regular schedule, no drama. How do you walk your dogs? Maybe you should walk her separately, if she usually goes with Lucky, or with the whole gang. Less distracting. Fingers crossed she figures this out.


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

Kit is walked by herself as is Lucky. The little dudes get walked together. Walking Kit and Lucky together is like being taken for a ride. I’ve done that exactly once with a leash splitter and it was like being on Santa’s sled. They bring out each other’s inner crazy.

Kit is much more manipulative than Lucky. She has learned from young age that as soon as she poops or pees, she goes inside so she has stretched her walks from 5 min to over 1 hour sometimes. The five min walk was when she was at 3 months. Now it takes an hour on some days. We have learned to continue walking her after she does her business and it has sorta worked. Lucky and the others does their business within 5 min which makes me very thankful.


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