Will not poo in Grass

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Will-o-Gisp

Forums Novice
Ok so I have a male Sheltie 7 months old, I have only had him for about a month so far. He will not go poop in the grass. He will pee in the grass, but he will not poop in it. He goes to the gravel and rocks and does a little (what I call lol) walk-a-poo. But he will not do it in the grass. Can any out there help me understand why he is doing this? Or if anyone knows how I can get him to correct this problem? Please help. :o
 
Why is this a problem - personally I tried to have my shelties poop where it is easiest to pick up and gravel is much easier than grass. Also peeing there will not damage your grass.
 
Since you have only had him a short time, I have to ask if he was raised somewhere that had a gravel potty area. My friends has one for her dogs. She uses in when the big yard is wet and muddy or if she just gave them a bath for a show. It keeps them cleaner. But since she also has a yard the dogs will go in that to if they need. I know a lot of show breeders with similar setups. Some only have gravel or runs and that is all the dogs are use to.

Puppies develop a substrate preference ie the type of material they like to potty on at about 8.5 weeks. So if a dog is not introduced to a material before that age and learn to relieve themselves or only have one type of substrate they will hold that preference their whole lives be that concrete, newspaper, carpet , grass gravel etc. That is why I do not paper train puppies I want them to learn to like to go on dirt or grass right away. Substrate preference is a huge concern for puppies in shelter situations and pet shop puppies. The longer they are in concrete kennels or in runs, the stronger the affinity for going on that type of surface though out the dogs life and can impact housetraining.

http://www.mabcr.org/template/upload_files/Where_is_the_bathroom_anyway.pdf
 
Great article!

I think all of my dogs that I had since they were puppies, peed in the grass but pooped on the concrete at first. I don't know why though as I had them since they were 8 weeks old. Trax now likes only tall grass for pooping and a hill for peeing. Maverick has no preference it seems. Sadie likes the shorter grass, but she's a girl so I think it has to do with where she places her *lady parts*. Granite...well Granite was brought up in the breeder's house going potty on their green carpet, but he doesn't seem to care as long as it's home. He's peed in my bed, in his bed, on my sofas, kitchen, concrete driveway, grass, etc. He really will potty anywhere as long as it's home. When we go away on trips, I have the hardest time getting him to potty because his smells aren't there. He can hold it for 8+ hours while we're away(go figure!) but at home could let loose at any second and at any location :o
 
Great article. It describes exactly what happened with my first sheltie - a Jan baby. Really cold and snowy in Alberta Canada where we lived at the time, so we paper trained her. It really took only about a week for her to be completely accident free- but when it came time to go outdoors I had to provide paper and just like the article says gradually keep making it smaller. That process took quite a few weeks before she decided outside on the grass was okay too. She rarely ever would go while on a walk unless I carried a very small piece of paper - this lasted for many months. Usually she'd do her thing in her corner of the yard soon as we got back from a walk.

This is why I decided to use a crate and train Hanna to go outdoors right from the get go. So far she's doing great ( but I have some work to do on me) - her breeder used wood chips in a doggie pen and we have a lot of wood mulch around. So if I take her out she goes pretty quickly. She's had about 6 accidents in the house in the 5 days I've had her - all of which were my fault for giving her too much freedom too soon, and also for thinking that just because she just went she should be good for a couple of hours. Not always true.
 
Thank you

Thank you everyone for the responses. It is not a hassle for him to poo in the gravel I am just afraid that since it is kinda an apartment and stupid people like to use it as a driveway that he could get hit by a car. I make sure they are safe, I just worry way to much. They are my babies, Shoot I won't ever allow them to eat gross things lol. :yes: But thank you again.
 
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