House trained dog started soiling in house

Hi,
I own a 3 and a half year old Portuguese Water Dog called Marco. I have owned him for about 16 months.

He is housetrained and usually has two 45 minute walks a day - one in the morning and another in the evening. He usually always toilets on each walk.

Myself and my husband work full time and we leave him from 8.45 to 17.15 each day and always have done since we had him. Up until 3 days ago this has not been a problem but I got in from work on Wednesday and he had pooed in my lounge. The poo was solid and not runny (sorry if tmi!).

I took him for his evening walk as usual but he didn't toilet which wasn't really surprising.

He has had the odd 'accident' since we've had him so I hoped it was a one off. Sadly not.

When I go home Thursday it was the same story

Today I have been off work and been in most of the day. I popped to the supermarket this afternoon and when I returned he had pooed again. I had been gone little over an hour.

The poo is solid and we have not had any problems over night with him.

I am going to call the vets shortly for their advice as I obviously want to rule out any health problems.

An ideas anyone??

Thanks x

Hello , are you David's wife, as there are not many PWD owners with a dog called Marco?

My guess is the first time was simply an accident, but the following incidents would be because he can smell where he did it and for him, its now a toilet area.

The problem is , being left for that amount of time all day, sometimes accidents happen, and once they do it in a "place" they will go back there again and again.



You need to wash the spot with biological washing powder , and stop Marco from going into the room for a while so he can break the habit.


BTW, how is he, we have not heard from you guys for a while, and we love seeing pics of him.

Hi, yes I am David's wife!

We're fine apart from the matter in hand! Yes he does seem to be doing it in the same spot.

We had an old cat who used to wee on the rug so we had to take the rug away. Unfortunately we had to have the cat put to sleep a few weeks ago but since then we have had the rug back out. This is where he is pooing! (which is somewhat annoying). It had been cleaned since the cat wee incident.

I did thoroughly clean the rug after the first incident.

I have just spoken to the vets who have suggested that we put him in the kitchen for a bit when we go out to try and break the habit.

I just thought it was odd that he had done it again today when I had only been gone an hour and him out before I went. Is it a marking thing?

Thanks for your help

I don`t think its a true marking thing,(male dogs usually mark by peeing up things) but probably due to the fact the "smell " is still there, and he has decided its a god place to toilet.

The trouble is, even with cleaning it wont get rid of the smell, as your vet suggests, keep him out of the room when you are not there, plus up the taking him out to toilet for now.

When I moved here, I brought a rug un from the shed. Within minutes, collie peed on it; when I sniffed it I realised something had been using it in the shed.. Even I could smell it

Out went rug and problem over; I have to leave the dogs for long periods when I am at market and never one accident, even from collie who is getting old and sometimes pees

Just the rug it seems. Once marked.....

Could you teach him to go on command, by giving a command each time he goes and rewarding him. Then when you give the command he will associate it with going to the toilet and this will make him want to go.
Once done it will be easier to get him to toilet on your morning walk.

Do you exercise him on the walk with some running or do you just walk? Dogs very often need to go following exercise.

Is a dog walker a possibility to break up his day?

I was having a similar problem but with wee'ing in the house - however, since leaving Riley in the kitchen while I am out has completely sorted it out.

Some advice given to us was Riley might be getting stressed with too much space during the day, and in fact now he is in the kitchen he just sleeps all day with no mess.

Getting animal smell off things is incredibly difficult, I had a cat who had renal disease which meant she wouldn't go in her litter box which had repercussions for the rest of the animals.
I found cleaning with bicarbonate soda, lemon juice and hot water in a mixture was the best - but took me a while to reach this conclusion after trying lots of specific 'pet cleaners'.
I'd be tempted to re-remove the rug tbh - obviously unless you are deeply attached to it, might just be move hassle!

You mentioned the loss of another pet, your cat. Was he friendly with her ? Could this be part of a reaction to the cat no longer being about. Did it happen before the cat went or just after it? Just a thought . Our dogs & cats are very close to each other. When the dogs are out, one of the cats yowls until they come back x

Hi guys.

Well we have gone all weekend without him messing in the house but having said that we haven't left him home alone.

I think tomorrow we are going to remove the rug whilst we are at work and see if that does the trick.

He could be missing our cat Henry - it had crossed our minds. They did keep each other company during the day.

We'll keep our fingers crossed x

Hi guys. Well we haven't had a problem until today. But we haven't left him alone until today. We left him for an hour or so Monday night and he was fine.

Today we both went to work, and took the rug up, and I have just come home to a pile of solid poo in the middle of my lounge. It now appears that we may be dealing with a case of SA.

If that's the case, why now? And what can we do to help?

I really thought that when we took the rug away it would solve it

Any help gratefully received!!