12 years ago I trained my GSD/Retreiver female to pee and poop in the same area in the yard and on my command. At the time I read something about how they trained guide dogs for the blind to do just that. My recollection was that I took the dog out EVERY single time for about a year. Every time she peed or pooped I would say “hurry up” and she figured out to associate these words with going to the bathroom. Only when she went, would I let her off the leash and play. If not, I would take her back in the house.

She learned pretty quickly, to the point that, I would only take her on a walk or to soccer practice if she pooped first. If she didn’t, I would leave her at home and she would be going crazy. She got to the point that she would literally force a small amount out so she could go for a walk…she knew what the deal was. It was great. I could take her anywhere for walks or to soccer games and know that she wouldn’t poop because she had done it before we left.

Anyway, that was 12 years ago. I now have a 14 month old GSD female. She is lively and very intelligent…as easy as or easier to train than my older dog was. However, I got lazy with training her to go to the bathroom on command and in the same place. No excuse, but I got lazy over the winter and started just letting her outside and then come back in when she was done. The end result is she poops all over the yard.

Well, I have now started to try and train her again…but with NO success so far. Here is what is happening.

I take her outside on a leash every time. If she poops, I praise her and we play with the ball for 15 minutes or so. For the next few hours, I let her play in the yard on her own and with me occasionally. If she doesn’t, I ignore her and bring her back in the house. I will try again an hour later and follow the same pattern. Incredibly, she sometimes doesn’t poop until 10.00 pm with her probably going outside 6 – 8 times for an opportunity. So she is stuck in the house all day. Yet I know if I took her for a walk, we would be no more than a block and she would poop. I feed her first thing in the morning and again in the evening.

Should I be saying “hurry up” as I am walking her around the spot or should I only say it when she is actually pooping?

Should I run her around the yard so the physical exercise would make her want to poop?

I would appreciate any thoughts, ideas or help. Thanks.

If teaching a new command, say the cue first when you're sure she's going to do the action next, for the first few times. There's no point asking a dog to do something she doesn't know or even understand yet.

Does it really matter that she poops at one place in the yard if you're going to take her out for a walk anyway? Just curious.

It's not so much that I want her to do it all in one place...although that is so much easier to clean up. The bigger reason by far, is that I don't want to take her on walks or the soccer fields and then have to be concerned with if she is going to poop or not and then cleaning it up. It would be so much easier if she pooped before going out...because she knows she should.

I had 11 years of taking my dog to soccer games every weekend and soccer practice 3 - 4 times a week. And in those years she probably had an "accident" just 3 - 4 times.

How I trained my dog to "Go pee" was to wait until he was mid-stream and then say the command. Then I praised him like there was no tomorrow. Same for "Go poo" (not very creative, I know, lol)

Another thing I did was wait until he came to me to be let out, rather than me guessing. Then I'd ask "You have to go pee?". This way he knew why he was going outside.

I think the most important thing is that the dog differentiates between 'play time' and 'elimination time'
and you seem to have that well under control. When my dog goes out to eliminate his routine is: do it, then run a few laps around the house, then right back inside. 5 min. max.

The funny thing is, I never mix playtime with peebreaks. So in retaliation my dog rarely mixes peetime with pootime. He'll come in, then have to go back outside again,sometimes within moments, lol. I guess he got that from me - if my intention is to stay outside and play, I'll still bring him in for a minute to reinforce why he's going outside.

I don't think you'll have any trouble teaching your dog what you want him to do, so long as he knows what you're asking of him. Maybe saying "Hurry up" before the fact is confusing him. Try waiting until he's actually doing something and he can associate the words with the actions.

I don't have any suggestions about keeping it to one spot, but I'm sure others do. I let my dog do his thing all over my yard because of all the other animals that leave their
'calling cards'. I figure he has to have the opportunity to cover up their scents. After all, that's his territory.

UPDATE - It is Wednesday morning and she hasn't pooped since Monday night at 10.00 pm. Thats almost 36 hours. Since Monday night she has been fed twice on Tuesday and once this morning. She has been taken outside probably eight times. She has peed about 3 - 4 times.

Right now, I just take her to the area and walk her around for a couple of minutes. If she shows no sign of going, I take her back inside. Should I be running her around the yard so the exercise will make her go? Right now I'm not inclined to do that as I might end up having to do it every time.

Maybe she's getting some sort of 'vibe' from you that's got her stressed and confused so she's holding it in? I'd let her run around, even though consistancy is important, I think the benefits of exercise far outweigh the need to establish a routine at this point. Since she's had all winter to do as she pleases it's only fair that you don't expect too much all at once. Probably you're right and a good run is all she needs, so just a "Good 'hurry up'!"
with tons of praise from you while she's in the act would be a place to start.

I'm guessing that if you place the stools in the designated location she'll return there to poop.
Sort of the reverse of housebreaking and removal of the odor- intentional placement of the odor, lol.

Just have to ask--what are you feeding her? Might be diet-related instead. Or maybe she already pooped without you noticing it?

I'm trying the 'poop' on command thing as the people on this thread suggested, since my puppy is used to doing her business near the *ahem* neighbour's garage (not my fault, my boyfriend takes her out at night and makes her do it there), and I'm not too happy about that. Took her out to the grassy parts of the sidewalk (we rent so we can't make her poop in the yard with all the veggies there) and kept telling her discreetly, "Get busy!" and "Go poop!" She kept staring at me, wondering what I wanted of her. (I know I said say the command while she's doing it but she WASN'T DOING ANYTHING and it was f*cking cold outside). Anyway, we weren't moving, I just stood there telling her something, and I actually saw her thought process...so THAT'S what she wants!...a few minutes later she pooped a tiny amount and was gratified with a "Good girl!"

It's not diet related. She would poop 2 - 3 times a day if she was left to play in the yard all day. And would poop within half a block if she was taken for a walk.

Anyway, I have decided to try something new. I'm going to increase her food. Here's the deal. I feed her first thing in the morning, then around 4.00 pm and again last thing at night. I do this because when I was feeding her once a day, whe would throw up yellow bile sometimes. Apparently this could be an enlarged eosophogus, so splitting her feed into three meals would leave less chance to have the stomach emty with acid in it.

On this schedule, she sometimes will not poop until last thing at night even though I take her out 6 - 8 times during the day for the opportunity. So now, I'm going to feed her larger portions and if she doesn't go poop in the morning, I'm going to feed her again at noon and every four hours after that (slightly larger portions also) until it pushes it out at the other end. That way, I should get more teachable opportunities.

I know there might be a danger of overfeeding. However, I only plan doing this for a short time. Plus she gets plenty of exercise.

Any thoughts?

How 'bout just feed her twice a day instead of three times? At your dog's age it's difficult to judge when she should poop because they can control it pretty well...like with us, we don't need to poop right after eating a small meal. Or perhaps you can add filler to her meal instead of just increasing it...like canned pumpkin or something...less risk for her health, more poopage. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

IMO...you sound waaaayyy too obsessed with this whole poop issue. I'm not a hard-core dog trainer but I do expect my dogs to obey me and know that I'm alpha. Still, they need to be dogs and to have a little bit of freedom to sh!t off-target once in a while.
I'd be afraid to be a dog in your house. Anyone who tries to control their dogs BMs has a liiiiittle too much time on their hands...