We have a 4 year old Ridgeback who has begun to pooh and wee in the house at night. Previously we had no problems and there have been no recent major changes in her life. We take her out every evening before going to bed and are always up by 7 am to let her out.

In addition she has begun to steal food off tables and counter tops if left unattended.

Anyone have any thoughts about why this might be happening and what we can do about it?

hello and welcome to the forum
i dont have any real advice im afraid but didnt want to read and run, i know how annoying it is to have 100 views and no reply
has your dog had any recent illnesses? sometimes an out of character behaviour can be a sign of them being poorly? and after the first time he messed in the house did you clean it up with an enzyme cleaner? ie simple solution, or biological washing powder/liquid? the reason i ask is once a dog has 'been' in one place it is more likely to use that place again if the scent is still there, and normal household cleaners will not get rid of the smell to a dogs nose, some may even make it worse so attract the dog to 'go' in the same place. with regard to the eating off worktops etc, did you train your dog not to do this or is it just something he has never done? you could maybe go back to basics a bit and give him a 'refresher' training course? i suppose its a bit like school isnt it? after a few years of leaving you forget most of what you learnt, so maybe he needs a bit of adult education

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Could this possibly be down to a hormonal thing since she has not done this in the past. I was thinking down the lines of phantom pregnancy but that is probably way out.

I don't suppose you have changed the time you are feeding her in the evening or the amount?

Hi and thanks for your response. How can we tell if she is having a phantom pregnancy?

As for feeding, when she started messing at night we changed her feeding so that she was just getting one meal in the morning. Prior to that she had been fed morning and night and the amounts if anything have reduced a bit lately as she was starting to look a little portly.

Hi and thanks for your response. How can we tell if she is having a phantom pregnancy?

As for feeding, when she started messing at night we changed her feeding so that she was just getting one meal in the morning. Prior to that she had been fed morning and night and the amounts if anything have reduced a bit lately as she was starting to look a little portly.

Hi there, no she hasn't had any recent illnesses. The only thing we can think of is that we have a lot of apple and pear trees and she has been eating fruit which has fallen lately. Perhaps that is the source of the problem? Does the biological washing powder apply even when cleaning up hard floors?

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

If she has recently been eating a lot of fruit i would say that could definitely give her a bit of an upset tummy/schedule. as for the washing powder/liquid if the floor is porous and has been soaked in wee, then it would need to be soaked in the solution (hot water/washing powder or liquid) to do any good i would of thought? you can buy the 'simple solutions' spray for hard floors too, but if it is a large area then the wash powder would be cheaper. even accidents on hard floors that arent porous need to cleaned with something like that because a dogs nose can still pick up the scent of urine even after you have cleaned it with disinfectant etc..

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