Pooped On Bed

[emc]

My 1 and a half year old chihuahua which was easy to housebreak, today pooped on my mom's bed. I'm completely stunned by this. Can anyone tell me why a housebroken dog would poop on the bed, and how I can prevent this from happening again? I now feel like I can't trust my dog to roam freely in the house.

[angelchampy]

I'd be curious to see the answer b/c when my dog was younger, and housebroken for the most part, she used to play with me on my bed, then all of a sudden, squat and pee. She did this on and off. Never knew why. Then she just grew out of it. So if anyone has a reply, it would solve a long time question I've had too.

[Canis-Lupess]

Sometimes some sort of stress in the dogs life can cause them to act in strange ways that include defacating in places such as on beds etc...still without knowing every last detail of your dogs life and daily routine and the relationship between him and the people of you house and even the relationship between the people and a whole load more, it would be impossible to speculate the exact reason as to why he pooped on the bed.

The best thing would be to deny the dog access to the bedrooms by keeping the doors closed so that he can't get onto the beds to start with, at least when you are not there to supervise.
The next thing would be to teach him a command word that he associates with relieving himself and activily encourage him to do this in a chosen suitable place outdoors and be sure to provide him with the adequate opportunities to do this so that he isn't likely to feel the need to go indoors anyway.

You can easily teach him a command word or phrase of your choice by saying it when he relieves himself anyway and then reward him. He'll soon learn to associate the sound of that command with going to the loo and he'll learn to go to the loo when he hears it because he knows it will be rewarding. Obviously, he needs to have something in his bowels to actually pass so you need to choose your times for when he is due to need to go.

Study how many times each day he does go and when he tends to need to go and use this to teach him to go when you want him to. Dogs are creatures of habit and also like routine so if you can get him into a good habit regarding his toileting, he's likely to stick to it, especially if he is rewarded for it.

I'm using "He" as a default here because I don't know what gender your dog is. If it's a she, I apologize.

[borzoimom]

Strange thought- but sometimes little dogs are momentarily worried about getting down off the bed.

[pitc9]

Have you noticed anything different about the dog?
Eating more/less
Drinking more/less
Has the pup been lethargic?
Having trouble pooping?
Maybe the pup is sick and it trying to let you know!
But it could just be stress, or something that just set the pup off.

My sister lived in Columbus and came home with her Husky to my parent’s house for the weekend and they went up to the room where they would be staying on for the weekend. While my sister was unpacking Yukon, out of no where jumped up on the bed and pooped! That was totally caused by stress of a different house and after being in a car for a few hours.

I would keep an eye on your pup for any changes in behavior.

[emc]

My dog's a she and she is trained to go on newspaper that's in a downstairs washroom, to which she has free access, so this incident has caught me by surprise. She is not allowed on the bed but for the past couple of days she has been jumping up on both my bed and my mom's bed, this is the only odd behavior I've noticed in her, other than that she acts just like she normally would. I might add that on the same day she pooped on the bed I accidently locked her in my brother's bedroom, she was in there probably close to an hour before I noticed some faint wimpering. Maybe this was the cause? She's not used to being isolated from everyone else.

[Canis-Lupess]

Maybe. It could just be a one off.

It might be a good idea to just keep bedroom doors closed whilst you aren't around to watch to prevent any future mishaps.