Uncontrolled Droppings of poop

[kreepy522]

Hi Members, can anyone shed some advise. We love to have our 6 year old yorkie sleep with us. Over the last 6 weeks its been a nightmare! He has uncontrolled bow movements at any given time leaving a small ball of poop in our bed. Its normal poop (not loose stool). Very small in size about the size of grape. we can tell hes not doing this on purpose.
Its a bad situation because he has been trained to sleep with us and cries when we kick him out.. Why would this all of a sudden start to happen? Vet took X-rays and all is normal with his anal glands and region.. Any advice?

[yorkietalkjilly]

There can be many reasons for a dog to lose control of his bowel and if he has one of the conditions that causes it, it may just not have yet been that apparent to the vet who checked him out.

Lack of Bowel Control in Dogs | petMD

If the vet-check rules out physical problems such as a small tumor or growth near the rectum irritating the nerves there, it's likely behavioral. Pretty much the only way dogs show us they havetrouble is by behaving differently due to their discomfort or illness or an emotional condition related to something that is bothering or disturbing them in some way.

A journal and review of your dog's day and behavior, reactions, level of exercise, food intake, challenging games and social activities for a few days may pinpoint something and show that the issue it is stress-related. He could be feelingstress in the family or from another animal or an uneventful, boring life with few challenges and little exercise. Worried, ill or anxious, fearful, frustrated, bored or even dogs eagerly wanting to show deep respect of submission often pee/poop asnear their humans' source of most intense scent as they can get - their bed or thecouch or chair - where they spend a great deal of time. It can be a comfort to a dog to relieve themselves where your intense scent is. Most sneak around to do it as they know when you seethem doing it, you get upset or highly excited so they try not to let you seethem doing it. If they do it in front of you, it is simply because they can't control it or purposefully want to show you deep respect or submission and that's usually a fear-tinged type of respect when it gets to actual bed-pooping right before your eyes.

Still, some dogs just won't pee/poop in the bedwhere they sleep. Often pets of very strong pack-leader types will almost never relieve themselves in the bed of their master, no matter how upset, submissive/respectful or excited they are, so they sneak intoanother room or another part of the bedroom to do it, just not willing to soil their own bed or that of their master - no matter what. So dogs are very individual in how any one of them handles a particular behavioral problem, even that of the bed-poop.

But before you make any conclusions, get that second vet check with stool sample, urine and a full panel of blood tests and go from there.Urine and blood tests will tell if there is something going on systemically such as a high white count, too many or too few blood platelets, liver trouble, etc. If nothing is wrong there and there are no obvious signs of pain such asrefusing to jump, walk or play rough and the teeth are good with no abscessesor breaks, it's likely a behavioral issue due to some stress, anxiety, lack of confidence, fear, boredom, etc.

If you do figure out it is related to stress and it's not a fear/respect-based submissive type poop, then you might startyour dog on the Nothing In Life Is Free program to give your dog some renewedstructure and start him on a good training program to get him busy learning,working and gaining confidence, bonding with you and forming a good, working team. Play some challenging dog games with him. Besure no other dog is bullying, challenging or stressing him in some way when you are not around - use avideo cam or the computer cam to catch him when you are away for an houror two and fix any problems there, such as if he's intimidated by a barking dog's sound from next door. Perhaps a neighbor dog is stressing him on walks outside and making him fearful and he can hear the dog barking when in the house, making him anxious.

Give him some extra walks away from any perceived problem areas and even starthim on some agility in the back yard, which could give him a boost, help his anxiety and stress by keeping him very active and involved physically in learning and running the course.

If it's a fear- or -respect/deep submission-type related poop due to a too-strong leader, the dog will need to be rehabbed by backing way off the pack-leader type mentality and giving the dog more room to be a dog. I doubt that is the problem here just from the way your post is worded but if you have a spouse or other person living in the home whom you think is being too dominant with the dog, speak to that person and try to come to an understanding with them that the dog is becoming too submissive.

I'm just scattershooting here - throwing out any and all ideas and thoughts as your posting is limited and I don't have much information so I'm trying to cover the bases. Hopefully all this will help you get some ideas of what is going wrong and how to help fix the problem. Keep us posted on what you find out.