My Dog Poops 13 Times A Day And Eats It

00:00 — Kati Peppe opens Off Leash and Unfiltered with a trigger warning and a request…

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered. Trigger warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the truth in dog training.

Hey everybody, this is your host, Kati Peppe. Before we jump in, I just wanted to take a quick second and remind you to hit the subscribe button because that helps us so, so, so much. We appreciate every subscribe and follow, and we have so much valuable information we wanna share with you. So we don't want you to miss an episode. Without further ado, let's jump in. Hey everybody, thanks for joining me for another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. Um, we've definitely been a little crazy, little off track here with our timing of our episodes.

We've had vacations and car trouble as usual, yada yada. We can't go up north without having car trouble. It happens every time. So I've decided <laugh>, we need to start factoring that in as a budget line item when we take this trip. So we lost a tire, um, as is very common up north. We're on all these old logging roads and the gravel and shale.

It's just, it's really, there's a lot of shale in there and it's, it's hard on the tires. And one of my tires just ripped right open and <laugh>. Funny story. Uh, we were actually prepared because, you know, you go up there enough, you learn the things you need to be prepared for, and we were prepared to deal with a flat tire. So we thought, um, but as it turned out, the garage that last took care of my tires put on some security lug nuts, and I didn't know this <laugh>. So, um, so we couldn't get, get the tire off, um, because we didn't have the correct tip for the lug wrench to get, get the lug nut off.

And so, fortunately, again, we're prepared. We have an emergency beacon, we have the number to the garage that we've used in the past in that area. And so we managed to contact them and they were on their way to rescue us when we found the tip to the lug wrench in the glove box.

So the garage must have just put it in there. I don't remember them ever mentioning anything to me. It might have been in the paperwork somewhere in passing. Um, I never noticed it, and so I just didn't know. I didn't know it was in there, but, you know, fortunately we found it. We got the tire changed, we contacted the garage, told them, nevermind <laugh>, which is good because, you know, even though we managed to get ahold of them, it's hours before someone, it, it was like a hundred degrees, like 90% humidity. Were on the side of an old logging road where the logging trucks are like, you don't see very many of them, but when you do see them, they're just whipping by you at like 50 miles an hour.

Um, had a couple close calls with them too <laugh>, while we were up there. Um, and I mean, don't get me wrong, it's like my favorite place.

Like there's nowhere else I would rather be. It's, it's just amazing up there. But it's definitely comes with its challenges. So anyway, we got the tire taken care of and uh, on our way out a couple days later, as we were driving through the checkpoint to exit, uh, the Telos region, we drove through some water, not super deep, um, maybe 10 or 11 inches of water, something like that. Uh, but it was a big splash, you know, and the Jeep just went haywire. All the systems were going haywire, all the warning lights were flashing, the wipers would turn on and wouldn't shut off.

We'd lost power steering, which is probably the scariest piece. Um, yeah. And then sometimes it won't start when it does this either. If you shut it off, it won't start again. And so we had to deal with that, and then it went back to being fine.

So we went on our way and we were driving and we got into town. We stopped at the gas station and again, shut the car off, went in, did our thing at the gas station, come out. Car wouldn't start. Then it started, but it started doing all the same baloney again with all the warning lights and no power steering. So yeah, it made for a really interesting ride home and now I'm getting around in my mom's tiny little Prius, uh, which I hate <laugh>. So I don't have anything against a Prius. My husband drives Prius, but, um, it's not my favorite.

I feel like I am sitting on the road and you can't fit a lot of dogs in a Prius either. So, and that brings me to my, this is a nice segue. Um, I had to pick up a couple of dogs yesterday. And so I'm in my mom's little Prius and we're riding home and this dog pees on her seat and I'm like, ugh.

05:00 — Kati introduces Mildred, a dog who urinated on a car seat while looking directly…

The one time, like I'm in someone else's car, right? My mom's car, dog actually just pees right on the car seat next to me. And she acts like it's just nothing. Like she's looking right at me, just squats and goes. Okay, well the reason for that is I'm talking about Ms. Mildred and <laugh> Mildred is who I wanna talk about today. She comes to us, um, actually from somebody that I know, she's an acquaintance. Um, our daughters danced together for a while at the same studio, but the problem we're having, problem she's having with Mildred, uh, Mildred is a little French bulldog.

She might be a mix. Her history is somewhat unclear, but she's very Frenchie. Um, she's about nine months old. And I mean, she has serious housebreaking issues. She just kind of potties wherever, which can be really tough to fix. So we're gonna talk about that, um, because this has become a more common issue now that, you know, quote-unquote rescues become a big thing and people are adopting dogs that they don't really know where they came from, what their history is, um, where they were born, how they were raised, like, and all this stuff, you know?

And so you get dogs with some behaviors that seem very bizarre. And one of the more common ones is dogs that just pee and poop wherever they're standing. You can't housebreak them. They'll go in their kennel. Um, they don't mind being around it. Sometimes they'll sit in it, they'll lay in it. Um, and sometimes, like Mildred, they will eat it. <laugh>, right? Which everyone has heard of dogs eating poop and stuff. It's not like it's, um, a foreign concept. We've all, we've all known a dog that's done that. But Mildred is a special case in a sense because <laugh>, according to her owner, she will.

And she's a tiny dog, guys, and they don't feed her much food. Um, in fact, I think she probably could use more. Um, but up till now that hasn't been necessary because she's eating poop <laugh>. That's so gross. But hear me out.

Um, she, they say she will poop up to, this is the number they gave me, up to 13 times per day, okay? 13 times a day. Um, and she'll eat it like every time. Um, so it's a real problem because it's gross, it's disgusting. And we're assuming that the poop eating is leading to more pooping, right? Because they're not feeding her a lot, but she's getting all these calories from eating poop, right? So what goes in must come out, and it is, and then it's going back in. And so more is coming out. And so you're getting into the cycle where it's just like more and more and more. Oh, it is the worst, right?

Oh my gosh. So she's here with us for three weeks and we're gonna do everything we can to get some traction on this issue. So let's talk about what our plan was, um, how we deal with this sort of thing, what we expect, like what is reasonable to expect and, um, what we've been seeing.

'Cause she's been here now for over 24 hours. So, and it's kind of interesting what we've been seeing, to be honest. So let's start with, um, what do we do? Someone brings us a dog that they're having serious housebreaking issues with, and we're talking a dog over six months, preferably at least nine to 12 months old, which she is, she's over nine months now. It's like, okay, up to six or seven months. Uh, I, I'm, you know, I'm not gonna put too much emphasis on like, maybe something is wrong. Maybe it's behavioral, like it, it could still just be developmental.

09:00 — Kati says persistent housebreaking problems beyond seven months warrant checking biological health and increasing…

But once they get past that seven-month mark, I really start going, okay, we need to develop a more serious game plan of how we're going to deal with this. We need to make sure biologically, biologically the dog's all right. Um, we need to use a much higher level of structure if they're not already, which I would be right in my, if it was my dog, because they're too young to not have that structure at that age.

But especially if you're having potty accidents, guys, you have to use the structure. I know you want your dog to just run around, like, especially if you have another dog and the other dog's just running around, right? That's the habit you've got into. That's the lifestyle you're used to. And you wanna be able to take your new dog, your new puppy or whatever and just throw them into that lifestyle. But unfortunately, that just isn't how it works a lot of the time. And if you're having potty accidents, you can't do that. You're going to have to be willing to commit to a different lifestyle for now.

So high, high level of structure, uh, meaning using your kennel, teaching a place command and enforcing it so the dog can't get off their place cot, right? So that way your dog is stationary in the house and they're not wandering around behind the sofa, around the corner, into the dining room, whatever, and pooping on your floor because they will, guys, they will.

And until you get out of your own way and do this, it will just keep happening. And I'm not picking on you. I've done it too. I had this problem with my own dog Nibbit, um, who by and large is great and he's had some bad behaviors that we were able to inhibit right away. But one of the things I struggled with was he would go into the dog room where the other dogs stay and he'd pee in their kennels, he'd mark them and it pissed me off so much, guys, <laugh>. So I know I like to say, oh, we don't get mad, we don't yell, right?

But I was mad. It did make me mad because, um, it's so stupid <laugh>. It's like everything else is good and fixed, but like there was this one thing. And really what it is, is I'm mad at myself, right?

Because I know how to fix this and I'm not doing it. Um, so it's like he can't be free then, right? Until I manage to successfully inhibit this behavior. He can't be free and try to do them in reverse, right? Not necessarily because we think we can or we think we can outsmart nature, but just because it's hard to change your habits, it's hard to get out of your own way. And I had the same problem. My other dog doesn't do that. I don't have to think about it, but this dog does. So he has to live differently in my house until, and unless I know I have inhibited this behavior.

12:00 — Kati argues that stopping unwanted behavior requires catching it, applying punishment, and repeatedly checking…

So what that means is I need to catch him doing this behavior and I need to punish it effectively and not just once. I need to set this up so many times, right?

That I can see he doesn't do it anymore. That's really important too. So it's like, yes, you need to catch the dog in the act, you need to attach an intolerable negative consequence to that behavior. But you can't just assume that you're gonna do that once, even if you go very high with your correction, which we recommend for things like this. You can't just assume that one correction is gonna be enough. You have to see the dog in that scenario, in that position many times and see that they don't revert back to making that bad choice.

Because if they do, guys, if they do and you don't catch it and correct it, you are just sailing backwards again. So you need to be damn sure they're not gonna make that choice again.

And I don't generally give my dogs full run of the house anyway. Uh, we usually have, um, a gate in the dining room. They can run around in the dining room, in the kitchen and, you know, sometimes I'll open the gate and they can have the whole first floor. But the problem is, if I do that, they'll wander through the dining room, through the living room and into the dog room, which is where Niblet will lift his leg. And, and mark, presumably just because there's a lot of other dogs in there, right? And a lot of other smells in there from other dogs, and he's leaving his pee mail, which is not okay.

Um, so he is now much more structured at my house. He spends a lot of time on place. He spends a lot of time in his kennel, which is great because then I just don't even use the gate anyway.

Um, which I, I'm not a huge fan of. I, I don't really like using gates in the house. I usually tell other people to try not to do it. And, um, so I don't like to do it either. Uh, and so this is just, he's spending his time on place in the house. We can go outside and run around. When we come in, boom, you're on place. Um, or you're in your kennel, and the only time he is gonna come off there and be able to wander is when I'm keeping an eye so that I can catch him in the act of doing this abhorrent behavior <laugh> and I can punish it.

Um, and until I've set that up dozens of times and I've seen that we don't have that problem anymore, um, then there's not gonna be any freedom and be very limited. Um, but so that's what we, that's what it is, guys.

When we're dealing with housebreaking, it's structure, structure, structure, right? If you let your dog walk around and they get away with it, well then you just don't fix it. So you have either accept, like you can accept that, that's fine, right? You can accept that. Well, my dog's gonna just shit on the floor sometimes. Okay, that's fine. But if, but that's not what we hear. What we hear is people want it fixed. And unfortunately there just is no magic wand. It's a difficult problem to deal with because your dog will just sneak off when you're not paying attention and go on the floor.

And so you have to be committed to using that structure and to giving them very small windows of freedom where you can catch them in the act when you're ready to do so.

16:00 — Kati recommends restoring freedom in small, supervised windows rather than immediately allowing unrestricted access.

And once you've done that, you don't then just go to full freedom. You keep doing what you've been doing and giving them small windows of freedom where you watch, right? Because again, you need to put your dog in that situation where, you know, their brain is gonna start to go down that old road of, oh, this is what we do and this is our routine and she is sidetracked over here cooking dinner or whatever it is you're doing. And I wander into this room and, oh, this is where I like to go. This is my spot, right?

You gotta put your dog in those situations where they would normally do it. And you have to do that over and over and over again so that you can see that their brain goes, oh nope, we don't do that. Right? And that might require several corrections, it might not, but you can't just trust that one correction is going to be enough.

That's a mistake. So housebreaking, you know, once you know your dog is old enough, they should be developed. Um, the vet says they don't have any infections or any obvious defects. Um, then you go to behavioral, right? Your dog just likes to go in the house and you have to utilize structure combined with punishment when you catch it. And that is the best recipe we have found for dealing with housebreaking issues. I do think it's important though, to make sure if your dog's peeing constantly, um, that they don't have a UTI. 'Cause we do see that sometimes.

And so that's absolutely going to be our recipe with Mildred. Um, high, high level of structure. Of course, that's our recipe with all dogs, right? They're all living very highly structured days when they're with me. Um, and so she's mostly in her kennel, unless we're working with her. And in a few days she'll have a good solid place command and she can spend some time on there as well. Uh, but there isn't any roaming around my house, right? Uh, it's very, very structured. So she's had two accidents so far while she's been with me. One was in the car, which I do think is highly abnormal <laugh>.

It's not that it's never happened. I've had it happen a few times. Um, but the way she did it was also a little bit different. It wasn't like a puppy, um, or a dog that, like, we forgot to let them go outside before we got in the car.

It was like she hadn't been with me that long at all. Um, she had a chance to go outside and didn't go. We were in the car on the way home and it had only been about five minutes and she just looked right at me and squatted. I went, which is not typical. That's really weird. Um, so that went in the file. Her other accident was in the kennel at the training center, um, actually later that same day 'cause we had to come back to the training center. It was a crazy day. Um, and she just at some point peed in her kennel.

19:00 — After an initial wet kennel, Mildred had no further accidents for roughly 24 hours…

I don't even know when. She wasn't in there that long, but when we went to get her, it was wet. So since then, that was over 24 hours ago. Um, or about 24 hours ago. She hasn't had any other accidents. I'm happy to report she did great all night.

Um, she has pooped twice and so we're gonna, we're gonna talk about the poop eating, but she, we walked her around. I hadn't seen her poop yesterday. So I walked her around at night before bed for a few minutes thinking I really want her to go before we go to bed. Um, and she did. It took her a couple minutes, didn't take that long, and she pooped. Everything about it seemed normal. The ritual was normal. The stool itself looked normal and she just walked away from it like a normal dog. She showed no interest in it whatsoever.

So that was pretty interesting. And then this morning it was the same thing. Before we got in the car to come here this morning, I walked her around for a little while hoping we would get pee and poop. We got both. Um, again, everything seemed normal and she showed no interest in it.

So, so far it's been a normal amount of stool and there has been no poop eating, um, which is obviously a very different dog than her owner was describing. So interesting stuff. But it's day one, right? It's only been 24 hours. Today's day two technically, right? And so a lot of times we get different behavior from dogs when they first come in because things are different. It's a different environment. We're different people. We clearly have different rules and they act different. So, uh, I wouldn't be surprised if we give it a little bit of time and we start seeing something different.

But so far that's what we're getting. Um, so fascinating stuff. Now what we will do if we see poop eating is we will punish the poop eating. And so people like, oh, put pumpkin, put pineapple, put sprinkle cayenne on it. It's like, okay, but first of all, it's not gonna work.

Yeah, I know it's not gonna work, 'cause everybody under the sun has tried that. It doesn't work. Okay? And dogs love pumpkin, guys. So how is feeding them pumpkin? So they're shitting out pumpkin shits. How is that supposed to help? I, I've always been confused about that. I would love to hear the logical explanation <laugh> as to the mental gymnastics people are doing to think that that's gonna somehow be effective, I think is interesting. Um, but that won't work. The picking it up, sure, that'll work, right? If you can pick up your dog's poop and everyone else's poop before your dog finds it, that'll work.

And good luck with that <laugh>. If you wanna do that, great. But our goal is to fix the problem, which is the dog wants to eat poop and then they do it. Um, so our goal is to inhibit that behavior.

And if you've been listening to me long enough, you know, we teach dogs to do things oftentimes through reward, through reinforcement, through repetition, through guidance, all these wonderful things. But when we're trying to stop a behavior, we punish the behavior by attaching a contingent intolerable consequence. That is how you effectively, efficiently inhibit a behavior, right? So our goal is to stop a behavior, stop it fast and stop it from coming back. And that's what we're good at. Um, so this is how we do it. If Mildred were to turn around and even sniff that poop.

22:00 — Kati says she would mark Mildred approaching her poop with 'no' because poop eating…

Now do I do that for all dogs? No, 'cause most dogs don't eat their poop, guys. But in her case, she does. And it is the biggest reason she's here.

So if she were to turn around and put her nose to that poop that moment, I would say no. And then it would be a 100 on her e-collar for a few seconds. And she's fairly sensitive, I think. I mean, she's dramatic. I don't know if she's sensitive. So a lot of people would go, oh, well, my dog jumps or, or has a little freak-out on a 15. I probably don't need a hundred. No, you need a fucking hundred. Do you want your dog to eat poop or not? So you've heard me say, people suck at punishment, guys.

People suck at punishment.

Yes, I know your dog might be more sensitive. Yes, I know your dog might be dramatic. Yes, I know your dog might be small. All these things, none of them matter because our goal goal here isn't to sort of kind of try to dissuade the dog from eating poop. Our goal here is eliminate the poop-eating behavior and eliminate it in a way that is safe and so that the behavior does not return. And that is how you do it. You use something much higher than you think you need and you make poop an awful thing to sniff or eat.

And yes, I know it's not fun, it's not the fun part of training, but think of it like this. Even if you do a four- or five-second correction that's really high and really awful, okay? It's five seconds of the dog's life. Guys, five seconds. How many seconds have they spent eating shit? How many diseases are they at risk of contracting if they eat another dog's poop? How many times have they licked your face? <laugh> Okay, it's five seconds, four or five seconds and that's it, right? And yeah, you might have to do it again.

You might have to do it a few times. You might, you might not, right? But if you are like, well, I've never gone above a 15, let's do a 20 or even a 30, right? And you just tap the button so fast that your dog hardly even notices it. Okay, well, even if that makes them kind of think twice about it next time, you are not stopping the behavior, you're just not. Even if they don't do it then, even if you interrupt it, even if they don't do it later that day or the next day, they're gonna do it again because you only tied a contingent consequence to it.

That was sort of meaningful, right? So when we know we're trying to eliminate something and we want it to last, higher. And this is one I don't play around with, that's nasty.

And so that's it, right? And then you be done with it, right? And if you see it regenerate at some 0.3 months, eight months, a year down the road, obviously do it again, right? But the hope is you won't even have to. So if we saw that, that's what we would do. And to be clear, we would mark it with a no first and it would be a very neutral note. We don't need to yell, we don't need to scream, we're not mad. The correction is very unemotional and we try to make the marker very unemotional in most situations as well.

Um, so it's a simple no followed by a meaningful consequence. And what do we do after? I wanna talk about that too, 'cause we don't talk about that enough. So we don't feel guilty, we don't cry about it. We don't baby the dog. We certainly don't apologize. We move on, we move on because it's really important for your dog to experience this really horrible thing can happen. This really awful correction, right? Wasn't expecting it. I did this behavior, this awful thing happened, but then life went on, right? So you can create a cycle of this really awful correction happens, and then things are really weird and sad, right?

27:00 — Kati advises returning to normal after a correction rather than becoming emotional or retreating.

Or emotional or, um, my owner gets all gooey and, and soft and I get all worked up and or we flee, we retreat, right? You don't wanna create that kind of a cycle. Life just goes on. We just move on, right? And if you're, if you really are having a hard time with it, then go do something fun. Like that's fine, right? But what you don't wanna do is immediately turn around and baby your dog, right? Wallow in your guilt, shower your dog with apologies and affection. That's not helpful. You're creating the thing you're afraid of.

Ask your dog to do some simple things and have them earn some food. Go throw the ball around if you wanna do whatever, right? Ideally, if you're going to do something like that, leave a little bit of time, right? Let what happened sink in for a minute, right? You did this behavior, there was a correction followed by just a pause, just neutrality. Like let it all just sink in for a second. Act normal. Be normal. That's what your dog really needs from you in that moment, is to see that actually nothing has changed, right? It's just this one thing.

So if you start getting weird, then that kind of sends the message that things are different. There's something wrong, right? There's nothing wrong. There's just an awful correction if you eat poop. And then often after that awful correction, things just go back to normal. We don't get weird <laugh>, okay? So be normal, be neutral, be confident, and just move on. And then if you wanna take your dog for a walk or go throw the ball around or do some fun obedience exercises with food or whatever, whatever it is you wanna do, do it, great. But don't become a marshmallow and smother your dog in weakness and softness and emotions.

Um, because the whole thing is supposed to be unemotional. It's just an, it's an unemotional consequence.

And the best gift you can give your d—give your dog besides that, right after that, is for them to stay grounded and see that everything is still just normal. And that's it. That's what we would do if we saw that. I have to imagine at some point we will see it. Um, but we haven't yet. Who knows why. Some theories, I mean, include, um, everything's still being so new here that we get new behavior, right? The environment's new, the people are new, the rules are clearly new. She's very distracted by all the different sights and all the different sounds and all the different stuff and the different ways she's living with us and the things she's doing.

31:00 — Kati suggests the unfamiliar environment may temporarily interrupt Mildred's habits or distract her from…

And so that's kind of just snapped her out of her normal habits, right? Sometimes we get dogs that come in and they're just too distracted to even go to the bathroom.

It's very common, uh, for the first day or two. So it might be that, who knows? But it'll be interesting to see how things evolve over the next few days. And you know, uh, honestly, it, it's like, sure, it would be great if we had already just cured her of this behavior and she doesn't do it anymore. But we know that behavior is in her repertoire. So until we see it and inhibit it, we know it's there and we know she's probably going to do it again. Like she's probably gonna slip right back into it when she goes home.

So the hope is we actually do see it so we can start, um, building that inhibition now and it won't fall entirely on her owners to do it when she goes home. Um, and I think that'll happen at some point, but we will keep you posted.

Hope you guys, uh, enjoy talking about shit today, <laugh>. So, and I mean, you can take these concepts really and apply them to just about anything though, right? As a reminder. So, um, dogs that counter surf, we treat it very much the same way. Um, dogs that engage in any bad behaviors when you're not around, we handle it very much the same way because it's so important for that correction, for that inhibition to stick 'cause you're not around, right? And so if, if it's something your dog does when you're not around and you don't successfully install a real inhibition, then when you're not around, they're gonna try it again and they're gonna get away with it because you're not around <laugh>.

So you shoot yourself in the foot and around and round we go. It's like you have to, you have to nail it down, right?

You have to really be committed to putting that roadblock in the brain because the stakes are too high. If you don't, they're gonna regress and you're not gonna catch it. They're gonna regress more and you're just gonna stay at square one forever. Um, but certain things we really don't mess around with, and one of them is poop eating. So that has to go. Poop eating, counter surfing, any—really any behavior that you never, never wanna see again, but especially ones that can be, uh, dangerous. So all pretty much handled the same way. Uh, we mark the behavior when it happens and we follow that marker up with a tangible consequence, um, that is of an intensity we think will really stick, right?

So that gives you the least likelihood that the behavior's going to regenerate, uh, which is always a common question, right? Is it gonna come back?

And it's like, well, yeah, of course it could, right? That's how behavior works. How brains work, like behaviors to spontaneously generate sometimes, different triggers, different—who knows why. So they could, they always could. But if you wanna reduce the likelihood of a behavior returning, then you use a a more intense negative consequence. Um, always safely. Of course, the tool we're usually using is an e-collar, and the unit we use is very, very safe. Um, we have never, never had an issue, um, from correcting a dog on an e-collar ever. So, and people like to make a big deal out of it and say that, you know, all this negative stuff is going to happen.

Um, the way we see it, it's all just baloney. We've never experienced anything like that. Um, there is a right and wrong way to do it, of course. Um, hopefully you've listened to some of our other material, watched our videos, listened to other podcast episodes, and you know, we always recommend marking the behavior when it happens before you deliver a correction and then deliver your correction in an appropriate way.

35:00 — Kati identifies the e-collar as her preferred practical tool for corrections and closes the…

Uh, e-collar is the most practical way to do that. There are other ways you can do it. This is our preference. All right, guys, thanks for joining me today and I look forward to next time. Hey guys, thanks for joining us today. I really hope you enjoyed the show. If there's a specific topic you'd like to hear discussed, you can send that to me directly via email or fan mail. Just jump down into the show notes. That information will be there for you. I really look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for supporting the show and I look forward to next time.