Anyone one else try to fix this behavior?

[Erin]

Hershey is a housetrained dog. We got her when she was 1 year old, already housetrained. Never had an accident in the house, cept that one time when she was sick...

In the past year, we've taken her to visit all sorts of folks (friends and parishioners from my church) at their home. We walk around in the yard for a bit, she goes potty, and then we go inside. She stays on the leash for a bit, and just sniffs around, and pretty soon seems curious, but fine...

Then she takes a dump on their living room carpet.

WHY?! How can I stop this behavior? Besides being mortifying, I want to be able to trust her when we go random places. I think she just gets a little over excited about being in a new place with new smells and has to poop right then and there... Is it nerves? Am I making my dog crazy? She's shy, but warms up very fast. In any new place, she wanders around for awhile and sniffs and looks around, but soon settles and lays down.

At this point, we go inside for 2 minutes, and then back outside. Repeat behavior until she poops, preferably, outside! Then we praise her etc. But I want her to be calm and trust us and ok enough with the situation that this wouldn't happen... Any suggestions? We take her all sorts of places, and I feel like she been exposed to lots of stuff in the past two years. I guess we just keep working at it...

[Adina P]

Gosh...that's really frustrating! I don't have an answer, but when she poops like this...is it an additional poop beyond what she'd normally poop in a day? Or is it around the time she normally would need to go? I guess I'd just keep her leashed the whole time...or does she do it ON leash?

[Erin]

She normally poops twice a day. One on a walk in the morning, and one on the lunch-time walk. If we go for another walk at night (instead of just playing in the yard) she might poop again. Every time its been in someone else's house, she'd already pooped TWICE that day.

And yes, she does it on leash.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Peri tends to poop when she gets excited. IF we go to the dogpark, she may poop even if she JUST did before we arrived. This weekend she had her first swim and on the walk back, she pooped 2 more times. Granted, we were outside and not inside, but still.
When she was almost 1 year (and in my mind, 100% potty trained), she pooped at a playdate at another doodles house. Smack dab in the middle of their floor. She was so excited it just came out. Another time she did it at her friend Max the wheaten terrier's house. She hadn't seen him in a while and did it on his rug. She has not done it since. I don't know why this happened. It really is excitement. So I agree with what Ricki & Tara said. Try walking around outside of the house before taking her in (so she gets the different smell, etc)??? Invite their dogs (if applicable) outside first so the excitement is out of the way. Or just tell everyone to come outside first and greet her?

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Erin, I think that you are on the right track with your current method of taking her outside until she has relieved herself.

One of our previous dogs was somewhat this way too. It was mainly when we were going on a long trip. She knew something was up with the suitcases out, etc. We took her with us but we ALWAYS had to stop at the FIRST rest stop right outside of town because she needed to poop!! And sometimes she was pretty frantic to get out by the time we got there! This was after she had already done her regular morning poop. I think it was just excitement about the trip but she still loved going!! Perhaps this is the case with Hershey too. (By the way our dog's name was also Her-She -great name!!) It may be more excitement and a little nervousness rather than fear or lack of trust. From what you are describing she doesn't sound like she is exhibiting any other behaviors that would indicate fear or extreme stress. The bowels may just be where "excitement" of this sort hits her!

Also, perhaps you need to go back to the method of potty training where she gets treats or a reward of some kind for going outside at someone elses house instead of inside. This would reinforce to her that you are happy with her outside behavior and help her to understand "outside" and not "inside". And it might help her to learn do her business when you first get there instead of the in and out that you are doing with her right now.