Messed up potty training?

[carol97]

Recently Rico has been having this really strange habit of pooping outside his pee tray after he pees on it. It’s weird because he has been potty trained both inside and outside the house and it’s not like him to do that! This habit only begun after I sent him to board with someone, he wasn’t like that previously.

Some of my family members attribute it to hygiene issues- they think it’s cause Rico doesn’t want to step on his own pee to do his business, so he’d rather do it outside the pee tray. But what I really want to know if there’s anyway to stop him from doing that without having to pen up that area which he does his poo on quite frequently.

Any help would be greatly appreciated ><

 

[BarbV]

You may not welcome my advice here...

First off, I'm not a fan of pee pads for housetraining dogs. Its a slippery slope. If you only train your dogs to pee on pads, then they will never understand going outside is the place to be.

Second, if you have Shelties, they need to be exercised so pee pad training seems redundant to me. They should be peeing outdoors while you exercise them.

It sounds like you may be in an apartment. That's fine. But they need outdoor space too. You really must walk him at least twice per day.

Going back to your original question, if you exercise them, train them and crate train them, you would not need pee pads ever(unless there are health issues)

My tuppence worth

 

[carol97]

Hi! Yes I agree with you on the exercising thing completely. Rico is trained to do his stuff outside too, just to add on. I bring him out daily at least thrice (once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once at night) to relieve himself and what not It definitely adds on to convenience because we just have to pick up after him and we're done.

But in Singapore, the weather is really unpredictable and it rains a lot and really heavy, so sometimes he has no choice but to do his stuff indoors (cause he absolutely refuses to do his business in the rain on wet and soggy grass ), so sadly pee trays are necessary at times here

which is why I'm slightly flustered on the problem regarding him pooping around and I'm wondering if there are any ways to fix this because he would do his poo on the pee tray during the rainy days

 

[Caro]

He may not want to poop in the same spot he pees. I know my cats are like this with their kitty litter (so I have 3 kitty litter trays), and a lot of dogs prefer to poop in private even tho they will pee wherever. Would it be too difficult to set up something next to the pee tray for him to poop on?

Otherwise just keep picking it up and putting it on the tray until he gets the message. When you pick it up growl at the poo, be upset, grumble as you put it back on the pee pad, when the poo is back on the pee tray be happy again. I know it sounds silly but this way you are letting him know that poo outside makes you unhappy, poo on the tray makes you happy.