Is he playing with us??
 

Hi all, I've got another question on potty training and I hope you can advise me something. Our Teddy is 7 months, and I'd say for most part he's potty trained. He's set into this "pee routine" which is like this: in the morning my husband takes him to the bathroom to pee (he has peeing pad there), after which we leave for work and we're not back before 6:30pm. During all that time Teddy is left in a separate room where he has his bed, toys, food and water. He also has his peeing pad there, but never pees (nor poop, I must add). So the first thing we do when we get home is play with him a little, and then take him to the bathroom. He goes straight on his pad and pees, no problems with that. The problem is his other business, which he kind of likes to do near our dining table and it seems his mind is set on doing his business there. We try to keep an eye on him, but the second we neglect, he's already there pooping. The days, like today, that we're set on keeping our eyes on him, it's like he's playing with us. He won't poop even after a heavy meal!! We've been watching him closely for 6-7 hours straight and no success. He would sneak into the dining room area, be caught, taken to his bathroom and well that's it. Like he's making fun of us!
What would you do in this case?

Normally, what time would he poop? Predict it, and take him to the potty pad before hand. I've also seen with my dog that walks or activity help stimulate the need to go #2. This is going to sound gross, but have you tried rubbing his poop on a fresh pad so he can smell it? Maybe he associates the pad with pee and not poop.

I would restrict his space so he's not allowed in the area he's pooping in for a couple of weeks. After playing with him, put him back in the area he goes in while you're at work and don't let him out at all until he's gone poop.

Pooping
 

Perhaps keeping on a leash all the time he is at large and is at risk of sneaking a poop in! When I had that problem when I was home and could not keep track of him all the time, I kept his (comfortable) soft harness attached to a leash and kept hold of it or under my feet. He can't go far without my knowing. It is a bit of a pain at first but does seem to work.
Good Luck.

I know when he normally poop, so I watch him closely all that time, but it seems whenever I am watching, he is not pooping. And he sure can hold. We spent 6 hours yesterday trying to catch him when he goes, and well, surely he decided he's not going till this morning. But I am sure that if we didn't watch him, he'd go and poop in our dining room!! Too smart to handle!!

We actually live in an apartment, which is like an open space. So it's either he's restricted to the bedroom, laundry room (where he stays all day) or he gets the whole apartment. We do try to let him run free because he's already in laundry room all the time during the day, but this is getting impossible to watch him all the time.

Thank you. This is a good idea. I will try this.
It's getting annoying to spend the whole evening watching him and feels like he's playing us!! Teddy is getting too smart!!