Let me give you a picture...

Adorable creatures that should be forgiven and helped. My pooches do not eat after 5pm. Let them out one last time at 7 they sleep all night. Rarely they can't hold it and it has been related to whatever they ate outdoors unbeknownst to me.

if you recently changed diet that might have had something to do with it.

IME, any pet regardless of size wants to please master and it doesnt take long for them to get that pooping indoors is not pleasing. So ck with vet to discard that there is something physically wrong

Don't worry, no one yells or anything. DH is grumbling under his breath at most. We can see that she is trying to get outside. This good girl is even pooping on bare linoleum for me a lot of the time, like she knows that it cleans up easy! We had the kitchen, family room, and halls changed to Marmoleum when the carpets were taken out. She has to travel to get to a mat.

I have a theory on dog diets. If you keep them on one food all the time, you develop sensitive stomachs. If you change among several good brands and flavors, you never get a dog that can't eat something because it it not its "normal" food. So my dogs do not have the issue of having to go through any change over period for food changes. Of course, if a food disagrees with one of them, we don't get it again. But they are on Blue Buffalo right now, one that they are on most often, and in the middle of a bag. She is getting more treats, though, because big brother is on Prednisone and is so hungry. That just might be a factor here. We will have to think back and see if the uncontrolled pooping predates the pred....Thanks, you have got me thinking about that!

Try reducing the treats-what goes in, must come out!

Yes, that was one of my realizations, she had a lot of treats that day. It has not happened again since my post. But wait, it will.

I wish all problems were so easily resolved……….

It does not happen enough that I think she is ill, I am not one seeking advice instead of going to the vet. Heck, she was there two weeks ago for a blood test, and that is when we got her age re-adjusted.

We sat down with the vet to discuss her big brother, Toby, who is pushing 16 (and I KNOW his age!) and has pain issues, anxiety issues, and can't stomach his tramadol any more. I picked up his refills today and he is starting a new nutraceutical for anxiety so we maybe don't have to up his prozac.

Dachshounds are notoriously stubborn. I haven't had any personally (I'm a pit bull and German Shepard mommy) my coworker has 3 mini doxies and tells me they are not hard to train...they are just stubborn. She says no treats at all unless they go outside like they are supposed to. When they come back in..they get treats. If they go in the house...no treats that day. It just takes patience. Also....pick a brand of dog food and stick with it. Changing their food messes with their stomach...that goes for most dogs big and small. Too many treats can cause digestive issues too. (Ever eaten a whole package of oreos at once? Remember the consequences? ) it goes the same way for fur babies. Good luck.

I feed them taste of the wild (brand) but they have diff flavors like salmon, venison and a couple others. I rotate flavors so is that changing foods? I ran out once and tried a small bag of eukanuba and boy did they hate it. Apart from this incident I've been lucky that none of my pets have ever been picky about food.

Amylou321, we will have to disagree on how limiting food to only one aides or harms digestive systems in dogs. Our Toby's fussiness from being on Pred means that they get a few more healthy treats than they were getting. I basically follow the Whole Dog Journal guidelines for feeding. The only junk food they get are the Science Diet teeth cleaning biscuits the Vet prescribes for Lizzy, who only has half her teeth.

Bossyvossy, isn't it nice to have unpicky eaters? I see that another of the brands is advertising on their bags or store signage that you should change dog foods - and that they offer several flavors so that you can do that.

Another reason for my changing brands, and not just flavors, are the dog food poisonings. In 2007 protein additives imported from China turned out to be melamine - the stuff your colorful hard plastic patio plates are made of! It caused kidney failure and killed dogs and cats and unknown numbers of Chinese babies. Dog food companies from super-premium to grocery-store brands were affected. It was a crap-shoot. If you were giving your dog only one brand and that one brand was victimized by this fraud, your dog had a bigger chance of death from kidney failure. This cemented my resolve to change among several brands to lower the chance of problems with my dogs' foods.

I was researching dog food and came across this article which advocates changing dog food brands on a regular basis to avoid allergies. This was new to me.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/how-often-should-i-change-foods.html

Wow, that pretty much says it all.

Nancyinmic,

I can only speak from my personal experience when it comes to the dog food. Any time I have changed brands for whatever reason, all 6 of my dogs had what I can only describe as apocalyptic diarrhea. Any time I have brought my dogs to the vet for stomach issues, his first question is have I changed their food. They vary in age from 10 to 4 years old and never had a problem with food allergies. Granted if I found out their brand was contaminated or unsafe...I would make a permanent switch to another, but wouldn't change it again unless the same situation came up. But it may be a breed issue too...as I tend to get the same breeds over and over. Some may be more sensitive than others. I'm no expert...but that's my experience with my own pets.

That may be the difference, I have never had a purebred before adopting this supposedly 11 year old, Mini Dashchund! All have been mutts. The sensitive digestive system may come with the limited genetic diversity. I know that my genetic disorder has affected my GI system terribly and am very happy to say I have not passed it on by having children. In your breed, this may just be something you have to deal with.

The Dalmatian AKC Club has FINALLY allowed the dogs bred by Dr. Robert Schaible to be included in breed registrations. In the 1970s he bred a single Pointer to a Dalmatian. He did that because all Dals carry a gene for urinary blockages that primarily affect the males. No Dalmatians anywhere were found that had the version of that gene that would produce low acidity in their urine, which would make them free of this disorder. If no Dal had the gene for low acidity, then all Dals would continue to suffer from this disorder. Dr. Schaible figured that if he could out-breed a Dal to a Pointer - a breed of dog that was used to build the Dalmatian breed originally - maybe he could re-introduce the good low-acidic gene back into the Dalmatian breed. He was successful. That one Pointer back in the 1970s passed a gene for low-acidic urine to his puppies. Those puppies have been bred only to pure Dalmatians. For ten generations, these dogs have been bred only to registered Dalmatians, and it took until 2011 for the AKC Dalmatian breed club to allow them to be registered as Dalmatians. These are the only Dals with the gene for low acidic urine and, therefore, do not get urinary blockages. Because the high acidic gene is recessive, some of the Dalmatians in this project DO have the "bad" gene, but NO Dals that were not born from that out-bred experiment have low acidic urine. Here is a nice discussion about how and when the breeds were formed and why out-crossing was a valid way of solving this problem in this breed.

http://www.dalmatianheritage.com/about/nash_research.htm

For some reason, the dog fancy world has narrowed their idea of what a breed is to exclude the possibility of bringing in beneficial genes by out-breeding to a closely-related breed of dog, or even to a breed that helped to establish that breed. Sometimes, for some breeds, getting that genetic diversity could really help.

I have no idea, of course, if this has anything at all to do with your dog's need to stay with one food. Maybe I wish some ancestors of mine had not passed on my connective tissue disorder that makes MY digestive system so sensitive!

That's fascinating. I've only had mixed breeds and been told that they are generally healthier and stronger.

My dogs have never reacted negatively to different brands of dog food and I've never bothered with "transitioning". Only one started rejecting her food, however it was due to illness rather than preference.

My neighbor has 3 mini doxies and they each have their own special brand of food plus supplements. They are all extremely finicky and struggle with digestive issues.

Luckily for us, Lizzy's digestive issues only seem to occur in relation to when she has gone outside to snack on poop!

Just from reading posts and my own research and experience, it appears that there's no "one size fits all" rule for feeding. One who has a cast iron stomach is truly blessed, both human and animal:)

yes, well put! LOL

The times I've seen pooping inside with small dogs is with friends who have pads inside for the dogs to use. I wonder if the pads encourage them to go inside and cause confusion about inside vs. outside elimination. Not a dog expert, here...just a thought.

It does cause confusion. The dog might also think any square on the floor is an acceptable place to "go" like your bathroom rug, your Pilates mat or your kid's board game…

I know there's usually an attractant, but it doesn't always have the desired effect.

You are all correct about other cloth items on the floor. I do use washable cloth mats, not disposable. Lizzy will also pee on another rug we have down in the house. Small rugs have to be machine washable. We had been buying some cloth, non-leakable mattress pads for my bed-bound father-n-law some years ago and I thought that they would work nicely for a dog I had at the time who had spent her first 4 years in a hoarder's kennel. This dog was so skittish that she never learned to come when called or to enjoy being petted by anyone but my husband, who could get down on the floor with her and who was extra-gentle. I am disabled and cannot get on the floor with the dogs and am also given the jobs dogs hate, like eye and ear drops, nail clips, and hair brushing. So this dog and I never became close because she was too big and frightened for a lap, and our house was too much in chaos with caregivers and relatives coming and going for Dad. He became suddenly ill and bedbound just after we adopted her. The poor dog never got totally potty-trained. So I bought some of these mattress pads to cover the carpet areas where she especially liked to pee. I was also working full-time then, so coping with my health issues and helping a bit with care of my father-in-law totally did me in. No energy or time left for clicker-training this dog, which would have meant trying to separate her from the other two dogs in order to do it! That, alone, would have given her a panic attack! So I dealt with her issues with mats.

Dad passed away, so I now have my mats and his mats to provide a bathroom mat for elderly Toby and another in the laundry room for Lizzy. Lizzy used hers once today.

Tonight she again pooped right near me in the family room without telling us that she needed to go out. It was the first cold night. We are going to have freezing temperatures. In the family room we have a large area rug where she loves to roll and play. She jumped off my lap and pooped within the first 30 seconds she was on the floor. It was under a table, and DH did not see it when he went looking for why it smelled poopy all of a sudden. We concluded it was a fart. A little while later, I got up to answer Toby's "let me out" bell ringing, and saw the poop. DH had never looked from the right angle. He did assist in the clean-up. ;-)

To clarify, I am aware of the "using mats means dogs will assume that pooping on a square is okay" theory. I accept that because this Little Lizzy has always needed a place to "go" if we left for any length of time. She has been pretty good about using her mat in the laundry room. Sometimes she also uses the one other rug or the anti-fatigue mat in the kitchen and I never comment to her about it, I just clean it up. She always watches me and seems happy when I am done, like "okay Mom, I don't like that stuff there, thanks for getting it for me." If I am feeling ill with my one disorder that makes bending over difficult, and leave it, she will eat it to make it go away. She does not like poop lying around.

Lizzy rarely ever pees in the house. She always uses her mat or the washable rug if she does. Every few months she will pee in the house.

The pooping in the family room while we are right there with her before she even gets to the door to ask to go out is entirely new. She has always gone to the patio door and looked back at us to say, "let me out." The new issue is that she will poop on her way to get to the door. Or just after jumping off my lap, like last night.

She normally would wander around the family room for a while, go lick the bare linoleum for a while, maybe head up the ramp to the kitchen, then head for the door when it was finally time to "go." Once we saw that she was going for the door (and not the water bowl near the door) we would get up and let her out, or she would stop at the door and look over her shoulder to tell me she wants to go out (during the day, she may be heading there to sunbathe).

So you cans see how her pooping behavior has changed. She will jump off my lap, and instead of sniffing and licking for several minutes before heading for the door, she is pooping on her way to the door. We will see her start to poop, and say "wait, Lizzy!" and she will hear the tension and loudness in our voices. We will put her out after. Except for last night, when DH did not see it under the table, she does not gain anything by pooping on the way to the door, as she still has to go outside.