Weimeraner 2 Years Old

[braathens]

I have a lovely tempered Weimeraner who was not crate trained when he was as a pup.He's two and half now We had a few indoor incidents until he learnt where to poo and wee outdoors. He is an indoor dog as gets too cold in winter outside and for some reason does not like his kennel. Last night he pooed and weed in doors on our new rug about the third time in a month as he couldn't get outside in the middle of the night. He gets walked @ 11.30pm and then olny has to do with holding it in till @ 6.30 in the morning. He gets fed on 2 cups full of dry kibble @ 7am in the morning and that's his lot but he's just a pooing machine some sloppy and some hard. My husband is going crazy and says we have to rehome him as he's not putting up with it. Either that or he sleeps outside tried it for a few nights till neighbours complained as he whinned all night. He was put outside this morning upon finding his poo and then given his food about 2 hrs later outside but he's not eaten it because he was too nervous about being told off. Any ideas as I really don't want to rehome him.

Edited May 22, 2011 by braathens

[OSoSwift]

What sort of dry food is he getting??

If you find the poo after the fact you can't tell him off as he has no idea why he is being told off. The other thing is also to confine him to a much smaller ( more easily cleanable) area. Either put him in a crate, use baby gates etc

Does he go to the toilet when he is put out at night?? does someone go with him???

[persephone]

What reasons did the vet give for his sloppy poo? What dry food do you feed?(not every dog can handle every food) What other food does he get .....bones/treats/scraps.

Have you had this dog all his life?

Sorry- I know it would be an annoying thing to find .... but telling a dog off for messing indoors is not going to help- as you have seen, you end up with a dog who is fearful and anxious ..and that, in turn, often makes for tummy upsets .

dogs messing inside on a rug is a MANAGEMENT problem ....

you fix the dog's health, so he is not having to get rid of a tummy ache/sloppy poo -by changing food, or getting vet treatment .... or you put the dog somewhere where there are only tiles, or you train your dog to not bark at night, and buy him a warm coat ...or place the kennel where the dog WILL use it ;) or you diligently practice sensible housetraining guidelines ..none of which involve telling the dog off ...and lots of which can be found by searching this forum - there are heaps of different methods .

Crate training is not absolutely neccessary - I have never had a crate trained dog .. and yes, sometimes they mess inside- but only when they are unwell, and I haven't been alert.

Edited May 22, 2011 by persephone

[Burkes]

Could you put a dog door in so he can go outside during the night? None of mine have ever been crate trained either and they all pick it up very quickly. Getting mad and putting him outside is not managing the problem.

[jacqui835]

I too have never crate trained a dog, but have also never had a dog who wasn't toilet trained. A dog that age should be able to hold it in for a long time - sometimes I get home from work and my dog has held it in for like 9 hours (I'm talking about wees as well), so the first thing I would do is take the dog to the vet and ensure there's no problems that end.

Whilst I don't crate train though, I did keep my dog very confined until I was sure he was toilet trained. At night, he slept in my room and could barely get out of his bed without alerting me. If he did try to get up, we took him outside immediately, and hung around outside till he went. If I couldn't supervise him 100% he was outside. What I found really helped was teaching him a command to 'go toilet'. Treat when they do, and make it a good treat. He is so good at this command now that I can walk up to whatever structure I like, tell him to 'go toilet' and he will (not that I ever would of course...)

I also found that telling the dog off for a mistake done earlier was very effective. Prior to doing that, he would go outside and get his treat, but if I wasn't there, he would go inside because as far as he was concerned, outside was preferable but there was no real reason not to go inside. You have to catch them in the act a couple of times (so not leaving them unsupervised where they can have accidents), but once you have, I am a firm believer that dogs can understand something bad they did a while go. My dog would hide from me when I got home if he'd had an accident; if he hadn't he'd be his usual affectionate and hyper self - so he definitely knew it was going to upset me when I found it.

Vigilance and persistence are key. And don't scare your dog. If your partner doesn't want the dog, you need to sit down and sort that out first, because the dog may continue to have accidents just because its feeling so emotionally unstable.

[juice]

As others have said, food maybe the cause if he can't hold on.

Also agree, put him in a tiled smaller area, with lots of soft warm bedding.

If its a behavoir issue, contact K9 Pro.

[persephone]

Vigilance and persistence are key. And don't scare your dog. If your partner doesn't want the dog, you need to sit down and sort that out first, because the dog may continue to have accidents just because its feeling so emotionally unstable.

Good points!

[Leelaa17]

What reasons did the vet give for his sloppy poo? What dry food do you feed?(not every dog can handle every food) What other food does he get .....bones/treats/scraps.

Have you had this dog all his life?

Sorry- I know it would be an annoying thing to find .... but telling a dog off for messing indoors is not going to help- as you have seen, you end up with a dog who is fearful and anxious ..and that, in turn, often makes for tummy upsets .

dogs messing inside on a rug is a MANAGEMENT problem ....

you fix the dog's health, so he is not having to get rid of a tummy ache/sloppy poo -by changing food, or getting vet treatment .... or you put the dog somewhere where there are only tiles, or you train your dog to not bark at night, and buy him a warm coat ...or place the kennel where the dog WILL use it ;) or you diligently practice sensible housetraining guidelines ..none of which involve telling the dog off ...and lots of which can be found by searching this forum - there are heaps of different methods .

Crate training is not absolutely neccessary - I have never had a crate trained dog .. and yes, sometimes they mess inside- but only when they are unwell, and I haven't been alert.

Absolutely, positively, FANTASTIC advice!!

First of all, WELCOME braathens!

I had a similar problem with my girl GSD - I found out I was feeding her too much, and also feeding too much or the WRONG food... if you are interested you can read the thread under 'general discussion' called 'jennas poos' - it should be on the second or third page of general discussion... some of the advice in there has to do with jenna pooing inside - because both her and my other GSD max sleep inside of a night

they, also, has to wait until 6.30am before they get put out to go to the toilet - my dad has gone away though and normally he would be putting them out after 11.30pm too, but since hes gone away I am sleeping downstairs with the dogs because then they can tell me when they need to go out - jenna will make a small noise and I will open my eyes to her just staring at me, and max will lick my on the face - those are signs that they need to go to the toilet.

So if you can tell us what kind of food you are feeding your dog then we can maybe give some advice on how to fix her.

I was feeding jenna Supercoat (and i was feeding her WAY TOO MUCH), so now I am mixing supercoat with Royal Canin (specifically for GSD) and her poos are much firmer and she hasn't pooed inside since.

I would sggest reading the 'jennas poos' thread because you might get some useful info from there as well as this thread!

and again, welcome!

[Leelaa17]

As others have said, food maybe the cause if he can't hold on.

Also agree, put him in a tiled smaller area, with lots of soft warm bedding.

If its a behavoir issue, contact K9 Pro.

I also agree if it is a behaviour issue then contact K9 pro.

[profumo]

Soiling 3 times in a month is not a sign of an untrained dog, he obviously cannot hold until the morning; given that you feed him so early in the morning you would think that he would have emptied out by night time. Are his stools firm or runny? I would seriously consider changing his diet slowly but surely. What brand of dry dog food are you feeding? Irrespective of whether it is a super premium dog kibble or supermarket stuff, perhaps it is not agreeing with him ?? I would look at his diet and crate him during the night. Hope your OH will exercise a little more patience instead of spitting the dummy, it's not as if it's an every night event, he sounds like my OH

[Nekhbet]

A friend of mine had a similar problem, her 12 month old could not hold on at all during the night and just kept pooing round the clock

Changed from Supercoat to Black Hawk and no more problems. Too high a grain content just ran straight through her, plus it was sloppy.

Your dog is not dealing well with the diet - why is that the dogs fault? You get angry at him more and more - why would he willingly try and communicate his discomfort to you during the night? He doesnt understand what is going on at all. If he is on supermarket food invest in something better, Nutro Chicken Rice and Oatmeal I find is the best one for a foray into premiums when it comes to stomach acceptance.

[:ange:]

Not sure if you are still around reading or not.. my Weimaraner boy has tummy upsets when he is fed the wrong food. We went through so many different brands of food - every single expensive one and we actually found he does well on a cheaper brand. Much to my amazement = since we switched him his poos have firmed up, he's going less and not to mention smelly farts have stopped!!!

If you can answer the following questions it would give us a better picture:

What food is he being fed? Has he always been fed this brand?

Has there been any new changes in household (baby/move etc)?

What access does he have to the house overnight?

Try not to go crook at them if you find the accident AFTER they have done it and removed themselves.. they have a memory like a sieve. They are not going to know or remember that they are being scolded for something they have done 15 minutes ago. I have both of my Weimaraners sleep in my room and I have never had issues with them getting up overnight for toileting (other than puppyhood).

Let us know how things go..

[sas]

If your husband is behaving like that then I say re-home the dog to someone who will a) Have the dog inside at night and whilst they're home B) Toilet train the dog properly without intimidation.

If your Husband is cracking it about this, he's likely to crack it later on when the dog does something else he dislikes, so maybe have that discussion with him, does he actually really want a dog because they toilet in the wrong areas sometimes, throw up on your favourite rug, wreck stuff from time to time, cost you a fortunte when something goes wrong etc etc.

If a dog is toileting overnight and is an adult you'll want to feed the dog as soon as you get home and ensure it toilets before bedtime, lift the water at least 1.5 hours before bed unless it's hot etc.

If your dog is only being fed in the morning it's beyond me why its' toileting overnight unless there is some sort of digestion issue and may need a different brand of food or the dog simply does not want to toielt around you because you used intimidation when toilet training.

I'm not sure what Wei's are like in general, the ones I have met are nervy so if your dog is nervy and you gave it a good telling off for a mistake it made then...sorry to be so blunt....but what do you expect....it's like someone running up to you and yelling in your face or giving you a whack when you have no idea why.

Edited May 24, 2011 by MEH