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Dog defecating in house at night
Our 8 month old Westie Schnauzer cross has been housetrained since he was 3 months old. He's never had accidents since. We crate trained him until about a month ago, and then decided that he would be fine wandering around the house.
About 2-3 weeks ago (around the same time he got neutered), he started to defecate in the house at night. He doesn't urinate, and he doesn't go during the day, even if we're away during the day and leave him out of his crate. He also picks rooms that we seldom use. We do let him out often enough, so that's not an issue.
Every time, he acts funny in the morning and hides from me. I know you're not supposed to scold the dog unless you catch it in the act, but I'm scolding him anyways, because he shouldn't get away with it!
My question is, how can we stop it so that he can roam the house freely (we like having the dog out for security purposes), but not have to clean messes every morning?
He is also in perfect health. He has been checked out by a vet.
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You may have to lose sleep for the first few nights, but if you stay awake and catch him going for it, then you stop him and let him out and praise him afterwards. He'll learn that he needs to do his business outside.
Perhaps you should pay more attention to his eating habits. What time does he get fed? Dogs have very long intestines and it can take a while for food to work it's way through their system. If he eats at 5 o'clock, that food stays in his system until the next day, but the previous nights food is coming down the pike and that's probably what he's leaving on your floor. It sounds to me like he's just gotta go at the wrong time and since no one is there to supervise at the time....
I feed my own dog at 3:30pm. That way, by 8-9 he's ready to go. The food he ate the night before is ready to come out because they can only retain so much. (Lovely subject, huh?) Exercise also, helps to move the bowels. If he eats more that once a day, that complicates things.
I would say it's just a matter of timing and that he needs to get a better routine established.
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