# How do I teach my dog to poop in the morning



## banzai555 (Sep 2, 2019)

OK, I know this is kinda going to come across as control-freaky. But ever since I got Willow almost a year ago, it has been a struggle getting her to poop like a (in my past experience) normal dog.

Every other dog I've known...my neighbor's dogs, my friend's dogs...poops outside the moment you let them out in the morning. Like...the moment. EVERY OTHER DOG.

Willow is super stubborn about it. The main problem, I think, is she loooooooves pooping on walks. Like, I think she holds in her poop strictly so she can save it for her walks, which I will not tolerate because she ALSO tends to poo when we are the exact maximum distance away from a trash can, so I'm stuck carrying her stinky poop around for a long time. My trainer gave me the idea of not walking her until she's pooped, so eventually she'd associate that no poop = no walk at all.

But it's still a struggle. Every single morning.

For a while, we were doing pretty well; she'd eat breakfast, I'd wait 1/2 hour, send her outside, and she'd poop (like 75% of the time). Then we'd walk. But complicating matters is that now, I don't know if it's because of the warmer weather or what, she does not want to eat her breakfast. Ok, so....I guess I'll switch to feeding her after her walk. But I still want her to poop beforehand. And now I guess without the stimulation of just having eaten, she is much less likely to poop.

This morning, for example, I put her outside and told her "go poop" which I KNOW she knows what it means. She'll go pee, then come back to the door. I tell her again "go poop" and she goes and lies down in her doghouse and won't budge.

So, no walk, I guess. She knows this, she KNOWS this. So now she's still outside and I guess we aren't doing a morning walk.

I just don't know how to handle this. No more morning walks? Immediately put her outside upon waking up (rather than letting her sit around with me for a while)?

Oh and when we're away from home, backpacking, she poops the instant we leave the tent/cabin/whatever. THE INSTANT. Before eating. LIKE A NORMAL DOG.

Whyyyyyyy won't my dog freaking poop

EDIT OK so the reason this is important is because there are absolutely going to be mornings that I don't have time to walk her. I'm trying to make her NOT dependent on walks for pooping. Like during survey time, when I have to leave at 4:30am to meet the pilot at the airport. No way we're doing a walk those mornings, and I don't want her stuck at home for 4-6 hours holding in her poop...I mean she probably could, but I'd rather not.


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## Kari01 (Sep 7, 2018)

Hah, well I admire your thoughtfulness! 🤣 My husband would let the dogs out and pay no attention to whether they have been or not. I totally see what you are saying though, I don't like to think of them having to hold it more than necessary.

Could you take her for a 'walk' on the regular route and just make it last 2 mins? Like start walking towards an area that is good to poop on and stop and wait there (somewhere extremely close and convenient)? A short sprint might help too. I take my dogs for a 'walk' every morning first thing, because they are conditioned NOT to poop near my house, the 'walk' just lasts about 2-4 minutes because I can't function that early!! 

I make everything very routine, absolutely no changes day to day, and then the dogs can decide what they want to do. I find that helps a whole lot. If you walk her occassionally and then not, she may be waiting for her usual walk. My girl is the same!


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## Orphan Heidi (Sep 21, 2018)

Just guessing but I think it has something to do with the brisk movement that helps pass stool. Like this:
My girl is let out into a small courtyard, fenced, for several hours in early morning-5-6am. Usually no stool.
Around daybreak she is allowed out back into several acres that leads to fenced pasture.
Once she takes off and runs 500-600 ft., she immediately does stool.
Just like in horses, I believe the additional movement helps push the stools further into bowel for expelling.
Movement = stool movement.


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## banzai555 (Sep 2, 2019)

That makes sense. And it's probably further confusing for her because I walk her in the afternoon, usually around 2pm, before her dinner...and I let her poop on those walks because I don't think it'd be possible for me to get her to do it in the backyard beforehand. 

This whole working-from-home thing complicates matters too, because suddenly I have the time to wait around for her to do her business which won't always be the case. TBH I've been walking her in the morning more for exercise than for anything...she's a 4-year-old, pretty high energy, and I've been doing this since I got her out of a desire to tire her out/avoid mischief. Now that I've gotten to know her better I'm not sure she needs that. And she's kinda turning into a lazy morning dog anyway...this morning for the first time she didn't even want to get out of her crate...she doesn't want to eat breakfast...she just wants to sleep. So maybe we just don't do morning walks anymore, or we only do them if I have to leave early and want her to poop (in which case I make it very short/fast, like Kari01 suggested). 

I don't know. I don't know what I'll do, maybe start getting her used to being out in the backyard more, like I was originally planning before COVID hit and I started working from home. That way if she doesn't want to poop right away at least she's not stuck in the house all day.


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## davewis (Jan 7, 2020)

I have the same problem. It drives me nuts when I am in a hurry.

Ole takes his time peeing. He has to stop 10s of different places in the yard to mark.

He can be bouncing around at the front door looking like he is going to explode any second if not let out immediately... Then he waits for what seems like forever to do his business. I think he has figured out that he gets to stay outside and play until he poops. This is something new within the last couple of months. He ain't no dummy.

My general strategy has been to encourage him to be as active as possible as soon as he gets outside. A couple of laps around the house at a full run seems to get things moving. We usually play tag for the morning potty break and fetch for the evening potty break. Secondly, I try to wait at least five minutes after he does his business to make any moves to go back inside. I would like to disassociate pooping with having to go inside.

Has your dog gotten better about cars? If I remember for a while she was not happy when she rode in a car or truck.


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## banzai555 (Sep 2, 2019)

davewis said:


> I have the same problem. It drives me nuts when I am in a hurry.
> 
> Ole takes his time peeing. He has to stop 10s of different places in the yard to mark.
> 
> ...


Good idea...I had read on here somewhere not to play with your dog until AFTER they poo, so they learn to do it quickly, but this sounds more biologically logical haha.

And yeah she's gotten better about whining in the car. Maybe it's a combination of her getting better and me not being quite as annoyed, or because it's summer and when she can stick her head out the window, she doesn't whine. But she does settle and lie down sooner than she used to, like riding in the car is becoming a more normal (not worth getting OVER THE TOP EXCITED ABOUT) thing. 

And for the work truck, she rides in a crate in the bed so if she whines back there I have no idea.


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## Galathiel (Nov 30, 2012)

My dog poops on command.  No, seriously, he does. I had a phrase for pottying that I used, but then I started differentiating between pee and poop. He now potties to any of 3 different commands and knows which is which.


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## banzai555 (Sep 2, 2019)

Galathiel said:


> My dog poops on command.  No, seriously, he does. I had a phrase for pottying that I used, but then I started differentiating between pee and poop. He now potties to any of 3 different commands and knows which is which.


Wow. Yeah I'm pretty sure Willow knows the difference between "go potty" and "go poop" (sometimes when she's standing at the door I'll tell her to "go poop" and she immediately will). She just doesn't want to every time.


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## K9SHOUSE (Jun 8, 2003)

Is her usual poop area clean/have room to go? That may delay the action or stress her if she needs to find another spot. Girls are funny like that. As a human girl, I'll find another cleaner stall. 

If you want to reward her or entice her have a special/high value treat for only when she does poop in the yard. Give right after (like within 3 seconds). Tell her "good poop" or "yes poop" or whatever you usually say when she is pooping. Only treat in the yard! Just matter of factly clean up on walks.

If you are not 99% consistent with the AM walk after poop then she doesn't register this contingency and doesn't know they are connected. Sometimes it happens and sometimes not. 

I understand the convenience of not carrying poop on the walk. So another option is attach the small poop bag (obviously not a giant grocery one) to a simple harness or have her wear one with pockets if you don't want to carry it and stick it in there. If you have a flat jacket for her, you could even sew or glue a pocket on.


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## Sabis mom (Mar 20, 2014)

I have had multiple dogs that seemed to need a walk to get things moving. However, you can get around it by throwing a ball usually. What it sounds more like to me is that Willow feels that as soon as she poops the outside time is over, ie she poops at the farthest point on your walk. Try to avoid that if you can. 
If she needs to hold it, and she has to go, she will likely only do it once or twice. Stop worrying. When I was travelling with Shadow we were stopping every couple of hours because she was so excited by new smells she wouldn't go! I finally put my foot down and refused to stop until the next destination. She very quickly got the point.


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## Squidwardp (Oct 15, 2019)

Plus one on "movement = movement." My one year old is getting into a routine, where if I take her for a morning walk over to the ball field where we play fetch and work on her being off-leash, she usually poops when we are about 2/3 of the way there. If I were pressed for time, or it was too hot for a longer walk, then a shorter walk will sometimes do it. The longer one does it every time. 

I've never had a "poop on command" dog. Pee yes, poop no. It would come in handy, I'm sure. 

Mine will walk past fifteen empty houses and poop right in front of the person who just pulled into their driveway, or is sitting on their porch.


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## WNGD (Jan 15, 2005)

I have spent years training dogs NOT to go in the yard and other than a few times with puppies, haven't cleaned up poop in the yard in 40 years.....

Having said that, my 8'5 month old has been taught to RUN to the wooded area beside the yard and pee there, almost always immediately followed by a poop (often one of 2 on our walk). The 6 year old pees first and always poops on his walk but NEVER before a hundred+ yards down the path.

If they occasionally need to go outside of a walk time, they will strut off 20 feet into the woods and go there.

Rain or shine, snow or wind, I haven't missed 3+ walks a day in decades.

Dogs don't NATURALLY want to mess in their yards. Thankfully, I don't want them to either


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## banzai555 (Sep 2, 2019)

Squidwardp said:


> Mine will walk past fifteen empty houses and poop right in front of the person who just pulled into their driveway, or is sitting on their porch.


Lol. I was just thinking yesterday, how embarrassed Willow seems to go poop when I'm hiding inside the house watching her through the window (she circles like 10 times before doing it), yet she will seemingly purposely poop, with abandon, right on Main Street in front of someone's house while dozens of cars zoom by.


WNGD said:


> Rain or shine, snow or wind, I haven't missed 3+ walks a day in decades.
> 
> Dogs don't NATURALLY want to mess in their yards. Thankfully, I don't want them to either


We've missed a few morning walks, but I'm proud that I've gone almost a year without missing at least 1 hour-long walk per day!

Also that last bit makes sense, and explains why she has no hangups about pooping when we're backpacking/camping.

Also someone asked up there about whether I keep her poo cleaned up; generally yes though there are some weeks I don't get to it for a few days (and it's summer and very dry here so the environment does a pretty good job shrinking her poops fairly quickly).


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## LuvShepherds (May 27, 2012)

She’s a rescue so you don’t know what her early experiences were like but it can affect her behavior now. This is just a random impression but it sounds like you are in a battle of wills with her. Dogs know when we are pushing them to do something and sometimes push back. As for walking with poop in a bag, we all do it if we live in an area where we must pick it up. I got very sturdy bags with handles, so I can tie them tightly and I don’t smell anything when they are airtight. I figured out how to loop the handles so I can hold it and I look for a garbage can to drop it in or take it home. If you are in a more wilderness area where you know it’s not a requirement to clear it, you might find a stick and dig a hole and bury it out of the way unless there are signs posted.


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## WNGD (Jan 15, 2005)

When you've successfully trained a dog to do their business out of the yard, I can let the dog out and go back for leash, camera, coat, walking stick etc for 10 minutes and that dog just waits, even with full access to the yard. If I've been out in the yard for hours, occasionally he'll walk 30 feet out into the woods by himself and pop a squat.


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