Bitch pooping on furniture

Hi,

I posted a while back about Jenzi pooping on the floor (kitchen and living room) for no apparent reason. This would only happen at night time. She would often go outside into the garden, play about with the other dogs, maybe have a wee, then come insuide and poop on the floor.

I took her right back to the beginning of house training and thought it had worked. This morning, she pooped on my sofa. Easy enough to clean up and disinfect but WHY?

I did think maybe as she has bad hips that she couldn't get off the sofa quickly enough to go outside to the patio, but 5 minutes later she was running about with Zane outside. So no excuse there then.

Does anyone PLEASE have any ideas to resolve this? I don't mind cleaning up after my dogs but having to clean up dog mess off the furniture really isn't nice - even moreso because I have Oscar and I don't want him anywhere near it.

We haven't changed our routine at all. Usually we're up around 6am and take the dogs for a walk. Then they have about half an hour's rest before having breakfast. About 20 minutes after that they all go outside to do what they need to do and whilst Oscar is getting dressed for school, I go out and clean up. So the garden is clear of pee and poop early in the morning.

We go out, do training, go for walks, runs in the park etc during the day. After Oscar comes home from school we taken them out again. We get back home, Oscar gets his dinner then about half an hour after that, the dogs are fed. This can be anywhere between 530-7pm. I did bring the feeding forward to see if she would poop earlier but it didn't make a lot of difference other than to begin with.

The dogs play together, rest, we may do a little bit of training (Oscar likes to help train them) and they will go out for a last pee/poop around 11-1130pm. With Jenzi though, as she was going outside, peeing,then coming inside to poop I would stand outside with her until either she'd done it or I was so cold I couldn't stand it any longer. If I came inside beforehand, she'd poop (usually) on the kitchen floor in the early hours of the following morning.

This is still very hit and miss but she doesn't do it anywhere near as often. But I don't understand why she does it at all. She never used to. I can't think of anything that may be causing it. She had a check up with the vet who said there didn't seem to be anything wrong and I can't think of anything that's changed for her (or for us) that may be stressing her out in some way.

Any advice at all would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Laura xx

How thorough was the vet check? My concern would be the hip issue perhaps being related to a problem with the spine and she's not got all the right feeling in her backend and maybe isn't able to hold the poo or isn't realising she's doing it?

The vet seemed to be extremely thorough - it took over half an hour. Although things like blood tests weren't done so if there's anything going on inside that I can't see, then I wouldn't know about it.

She hasn't given any indication that she can't feel or that she's having problems. She was able to run about quite happily with the other dogs straight afterwards and when walking or moving, it's no different to before.

She will squat down to pee or stoop to poop, so she knows when she's doing it. She doesn't have the anal funculosis (sp?) that I know some dogs get. A trainer I know has a GSD with that and it falls fromn her without her knowing. That isn't the case with Jenzi. She's knows she has to go.

Fortunately when she does it the other dogs avoid it. They don't go stamping in it so I suppose that's at least something going in my favour!

I would ask your vet to xray her spine. If she has arthritis in the lower region ( it can occur at any age, not just when older) it can cause problems like this. Dogs adapt to limitations that you may not be aware of & there are certain spinal problems that dogs can be prone to. They genuinely dont know or get mixed sensations - when out & about they are tensed & dont go, come home & relax & it happens.

Without xrays the Vet cant tell no matter how good they are often the dogs dont even realise theyve gone & passed a motion (pooh)

If all ok healthwise i suggest you get a behavourist in

She may know she's got to go/is going but it doesn't necessarily mean she can hold it. It's a problem we had with Shadow after he recovered from what appeared to be a stroke. He squatted to poop and knew when he was going. He also knew when he had to go but when he had to go he had to go RIGHT NOW unfortunately.

Bran didn`t have a lot of rear end control towards the end due to his arthitis. I`d suspect a problem with the spine too. Spondylosis is pretty common in older dogs.
Does your dog tense or flinch when you massage along the spine anywhere?

Nope - no hint of tensing, flinching, being irritated or bothered at all by being touched anywhere on her body.

She is going back to the vets tomorrow to be x-rayed all along her spine and anywhere else they feel the need to look at.

Think you are very wise to get her xrayed. Our eldest bitch had spondylosis & had this problem. They may appear to kniw what theyre doing but in reality, they dont

Well Jenzi was dropped off at the vets at 8am this morning. They'll x-ray her around 12ish and I can call at 1pm to see how she is etc.

When I go to collect her I will get to see the x-rays and have explained any problems. They already have x-rays fromwhen her right hip first came out of place so hopefully they'll compare the 2 lots to see if anything has changed.

Jenzi is home. The vet showed me her x-rays and compared them with those taken of her hips and base of her spine last summer. Although much of it is different because her whole spine has been x-rayed this time, the areas that can be compared show no change.

Also, there's nothing there to indicate anything wrong.

So with that in mind, maybe I'm doing something wrong and it's a training issue.