Bad New Behavior--Advice Please!

[silverfish]

Yes re putting food down for 30 minutes and then picking it up, whether he eats or not, whether it be b'fast or supper. He may be hungry overnight, but he will learn that when food is in front of him, he needs to eat it or go without. Being hungry overnight may cause a problem which he may indicate by whining or walking around and generally being a pain. If this happens, I'd give him a biscuit to calm him down, but next evening, if he again doesn't eat his supper, give him a biscuit before you go to bed. You don't want to teach him that he's going to get a biscuit in the middle of the night every night.

 

I agree too. I do actually have a dog who will starve himself*, but it's not common. Put his food down, leave it half an hour and take it away until next mealtime. You can try adding some wet food if you're not doing so already, because it may help him to eat at the proper time, and, well, dogs enjoy their kibble far more with a little canned or fresh wet food.

 

I'm wondering if you do feed dry kibble. If you do, he might do better with it wet or soaked. If you don't, you really shouldn't be leaving it out all day anyway. I'm trying to think of what might be upsetting his eating/pooping routine ... you see, four cups is a huge amount of kibble anyway, which makes me think several things:

 

It's an enormous amount for a greyhound to eat in one meal.

It must be high residue food if he's pooping that much and still not eating it all

He'd need to drink a LOT of water to balance it out

He may have a very uncomfortable gut, and possibly be constipated or have diarrhoea.

 

What is his weight like?

 

I really would try to use a lower residue food and make it more attractive so he eats at the proper time. I agree with the biscuit at bedtime. Ours get milk before bed and they very quickly learned the routine. They have a small drink of milk and then they go out. When they come in again, it's time to move into the bedroom.

 

*For the doubting Thomases: Jeffie is quite capable of starving himself to the point where the vet gets concerned about the amount he's losing, because he can't afford to lose weight anyway - he's always been on the low side of what he should be. He seems to get into a vicious cycle where if he doesn't eat for several meals it is really hard to get him to start again and he seems to lose interest in the whole eating thing. He's a weird dog.

[Guest KTPrime]

I only feed dry kibble because I worry about his teeth. He usually doesn't eat 4 cups at all once. He might nibble a little on his food during the day, then finish it off when I come home. Then he might get his other 2 cups around 9 or 10 when he starts whining. His weight is stable, haven't noticed any changes.

I'm not familiar with this term high/low-residue food? What type of food would either be?

[Brandiandwe]

There are other options for his teeth. And mine had worse teeth on kibble than raw. I'm not advocating raw feeding necessarily, but just saying, teeth do best on things they gnaw: bones, etc, or by being brushed etc.

 

High vs low residue: I think. Might be wrong. Poop = stuff that hasn't been digested. High residue food implies to me extra stuff which moves on through. High fibre, fillers etc. low residue is the reverse. We often see higher residue food suggested to firm up poop. So fibre, some grains etc firm things up for some dogs. For others, it causes a problem, because it's simply too much.

 

Others will correct me I'm sure.

[silverfish]

Well, don't worry about it for the sake of his teeth. They hardly ever chew it enough to make a difference anyway. Far better to brush and give specific things to chew (raw meaty bones, pig ears, dried tripe, pizzles etc).

High residue food vs low residue food: it relates to how much poop you get out at the other end, basically. Higher quality foods have fewer indigestible fillers so there's a lot less waste product (poop). You get smaller, firmer poops and less of them. With high residue foods, there's a lot of bulk, the poop may be soft or even porridge-like, and you'll often get more poops per day.

 

Since switching Jeffie onto low residue food, he's not only improved condition-wise, but he poops once in the morning, and once in the evening - and often the evening one is really small and hardly worth the use of a bag. At the moment, we're using Almo Nature Holistic, which is an Italian brand. To be fair, I should describe these foods as lowER residue, because they're not low residue in the sense that a vet would mean it - there are special 'low residue' diet foods, and I'm not suggesting he needs that - but there would be a much higher percentage of totally digestible ingredients than in a cheaper food. Yes, they usually are more expensive, but you need to feed a lot less, so it balances out.

 

BTW, personally, I wouldn't feed a dog a full meal that late at night.

[Guest iconsmum]

So, Optimus has recently developed the unfortunate habit of pooping inside. Specifically, it seems to happen in the morning, though there have been incidents in the evening if we go out unexpectedly. He just just seems completely uninterested in walking in the mornings. I take him out, he pees, then he goes to run back inside. If I try to direct him to keep walking, he just statues. I've tried waiting him out or enticing him with treats but he has zero interest (and he's incredibly stubborn when he doesn't want to walk). Then, usually within half an a hour to an hour, I'll find he's pooped on the floor, or BF will find it right after I leave.

 

This morning, I took him out, he peed, and dragged me back inside. I figured maybe I'd take my shower and try to take him out again. But, after I came out of shower, he had already pooped in the entryway. It's so odd because at any other time of the day, he'd come and whine at me when he needs to go outside, but in the morning he just wants to sneak off and poop. We had a similar problem last winter when he didn't want to go outside, but he was able to hold it until I got home. Now he's regularly pooping an hour after I've tried to walk him.

 

I think this may have gotten worse when we switched his food about a month ago after finding out he's allergic to chicken (and that his limited ingredient brown rice and lamb actually contained chicken). Now he's on Natural Balance sweet potato and venison and it seems like he's eliminating much more. I'm not sure if he's still adjusting or if this one just passes through him more quickly, or if the other one caused inflammation that caused him to go less.

 

This is even more of a problem because we're in the process of closing on our first house (yay!) and we're moving in a few weeks. Our whole place is carpet so I really don't want him to be pooping inside and ruining our carpet from day 1.

 

Any suggestions on how to get him to poop in the mornings? I'm going to try to put his jacket on but coldness doesn't seem to be the issue, it more seems like he's just tired and wants to get back to bed (after pooping on my floor, of course). BF will probably flip his lid if Optimus has accidents in the new house, and I'd really like to mitigate this issue now before we move.

 

I guess Optimus has always been only semi-reliable with house breaking. I do consider him to be house trained, but with the caveat that he can't really be trusted unless he has a 45-minute walk before I leave the house. He just doesn't seem inclined to hold it if he has to go, but I don't even know how to fix this if I can't even get him to go for a walk. Help please!

 

 

 

Looks like you already know the answer but you're not willing to out in the effort to fix things. Tether him to you in the morning as soon as he's out of bed. Go out and stay out till he poops. Walk him briskly for half an hour. If nothing then he stays tethered to you, gets fed, and goes out with you again. Crate him to prevent accidents and most of all, grow that parents' third eye in the back of your head and USE it.

[silverfish]

Just one more thought: you say he doesn't seem inclined to hold it if he has to go, and there are one or two conditions which can cause an inability to hold onto bowel contents. It's very uncommon in younger dogs, but fairly common in older seniors that they become to some extent incontinent with age, but problems with the spine, and sometimes with the prostate can cause this, too. Never damage, growths, a couple of other things can also cause it.

I can't actually see what he's doing, of course, but for instance a dog who keeps walking and seems not to notice while his tail goes up into 'I'm about to poop' mode may not have the normal sensation in his bowel.

Likely it's nothing to do with it in your case. Just thought I'd mention it.

[Guest KTPrime]

So we're on day two (day 1.5?) of actually being on a schedule! Now that I'm doing it, it seems so obvious, but I didn't really think of it as important until everyone chimed in and gave me advice on how to get him more into a routine, so thank you!

Last night I got home around 6:15, we went for a quick walk, and then he got supper at 6:30. I think he must love his new food because he ate pretty much his entire 2 cups of food. Bowl promptly was picked up at 7:00, and then out for a nice long walk at 7:30 (and got him to poop twice). He definitely did a fair amount of whining that night, but I would walk into my room and close the door until he quieted and laid down (only took a minute or so of me being gone). Then we did final walk of the night around 10, and he p&p again.

We went to bed shortly after that. He woke us up at 4:30 frantically whining and barking--not his give-me-attention-whine, but his very frantic I-have-to-go-out-now-whine. So I took him out and he p&p and quickly came back in and went back to sleep. Hopefully as we transition off this food, he won't need to go so frequently. Then it was up at 8:00am to feed him, gave him 30 minutes, and then outside again. He was not in the mood to walk as usual, but I got to him walk for at least 20 minutes to p&p. Hoping that will be enough to hold him until I get home but I'm not sure it will be... I think tomorrow I"ll feed him at 7:30 and give him more time to digest his food before he walks, then maybe he'll be more inclined to empty out completely on our walk.

It just feels really good to be using an actual schedule instead of our usual semi-free feeding and talking him out 10 times a night, with plenty of whining thrown in. It seems so obvious now.... I guess I didn't realize how dysfunctional we were being until I actually sat down and wrote about it and discussed it with everyone. Thank you everyone for your helpful input! I'm really hopeful that this new schedule will lead to smoother sailing, though I know it will take time for him to adjust, since he didn't develop these bad habits overnight, and I know the won't disappear overnight. Still though, it feels like progress!

[NeylasMom]

It is progress, good for you!

[silverfish]

Sounds like good progress! Well done! I hope it continues to work for you both.

Don't feel too bad. Many dogs do so much better on a schedule, but some are fine without. We have the milk routine and the pills routine, but on the whole I'm pretty relaxed about what else happens and at what time. If my dogs didn't do well on that, I'd have to change, but I'm lucky.

[Feisty49]

Good news. Keep us up-to-date.

[Brandiandwe]

Fingers crossed for you!

[gracegirl]

How did things go today?

[Batmom]

What you were doing before works fine for some dogs, just not for others. Don't beat yourself up over that.

 

And, FWIW, I have tried innocent-seeming , highly touted foods that caused my dogs to have to poop huge amounts and/or with great urgency.

[Fruitycake]

I'm glad that what you have tried seems to be helping! One thing I have noticed, though, is that the "cups per day" recommendations on any bag of pet food are *exceptionally* high. As in, they may be nearly twice as high as needed to maintain a pet (not high exercise) animal, and especially in older animals. It is in the company's best interest to encourage high feeding amounts, because it means people purchase more. And my Monty, 8 years old now but he's always been this way, will poop what seems to be exponentially more poop when we even increase his food a tiny bit to try to get him to gain. He's a "hard keeper" and while he has always loved his food, he is a skinny hound and will not gain on increased regular food. We are nowhere near the recommended amount of his food per day for his size, but he is at the same weight he was when we fed him more. Sometimes we will add in raw beef chunks in the winter to add in easily digested calories, which seem to help him gain some without increasing his output. He loves that....

 

Another advantage to set mealtimes is that you will know exactly how much he is eating, and after he is used to the routine you will know when something goes awry and he goes off his food. I am a huge proponent of that with cats, too, because it can be a great early warning system for those stoic, stubbornly secretive animals!

 

If he doesn't want to eat all of his food in two large meals, you might also think about keeping back a third small portion to give him just before bed as a last call, making his other meals a bit smaller. Monty does best on smaller, more numerous meals, but not all dogs are as frustratingly difficult to balance as he is!