Hello,

Just wanted to know if anyone know what this is caused by.
I have a 5 year old boston that will pee and/or poo when I go out.
I will walk him in the morning and when I get home from work about 5 hours later. During this time he will pee on my carpet or poo. sometimes he will do it on my bed, or he will dig through a garbage can even when there is nothing in it or go through my girlfriends purse. When I get home he always stays hidden and once he is out from hidding he keeps his head down as he knows he is wrong. so what am I to do? I really hate when he does this and he has been doing it for the last year now. I have had him since he was a pup and he is fully trained. Please let me know what this could be caused by and how I can go about fixing this problem.
Thanks so much
Brandon

hi let me start by saying that dogs don't know when they have done something wrong. they react on your behavior. they read your body language and take that to look asthough they know. a dog has a memory spand of about 10 second then they forget. you might see that when you return from work that he will yawn or stretch. these are calming signals that they use to calm the other when faced with stress. you probably have scolded him the first time he did it. then the secondtime you came in you first looked if he had done something. this is enough to condition him to look guilty as he is not sure how you will react on him. thats enough behavior analysing!
for the problem at hand. it sounds like he has built up an anxiety. has there been something that changed in his life? has something happend in the time your from home that scared him? this is something you'll need to find out. the peeing and poohing is a reaction that happens when fear or stress enters your dog. if you are scared of the dentist you'll go to the toilet more than usual. this is because the stress causes the digestive system to work overtime. the same thing happens to your dog. i can't give any advise because i don't know the reason he has begun with this behavior. try to find out what has changed and let us know. then we can look for a solution!

I have done some moving and he now just lives with me where as before he had my son and daughter and then I moved to my mothers and then we moved here and have been here for a while now. That is the change.

Thanks again

this could cause seperation anxioty. the many changes makes a dog unsure and because they don't know what to expect they become scared. this could go away on it's own but could also stay a problem. don't scold. ignore. take him out and play with him. this could reasure him and that will cause the behavior to stop.let him play while you clean up. the more you react to the behavior the more unsure he will become.