Why Does My Dog Poop on Concrete? 8 Possible Reasons
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Your clever dog may have been easy to house train, but then you notice them pooping on the sidewalk. You shrug it off as a one-time occurrence and carry on. If it begins to happen repeatedly, it looks like your dog may have found a new bathroom!
When a dog uses concrete for their bathroom, it gets stepped on and all over your car tires if it’s on the driveway. Below, we will look at eight possible reasons your dog may be using concrete as their bathroom. For each reason, we will suggest a potential solution. Then, we will discuss how to encourage your dog to develop good bathroom habits.
Top 8 Reasons Dogs Poop on Concrete:
1. Marking
We often associate dogs peeing with marking their territory, but defecating is another way they do it. By leaving their poop, a dog lets other animals in the area know that the space belongs to them. Dogs are clever animals, and they know that leaving feces on concrete versus the grass will get noticed, and the smell is stronger.
While it’s often territorial, marking can also be a form of communication between dogs. When they leave their scent, they are saying, “I was here.” If a dog rolls in another dog’s poop, it’s almost as if they’re saying, “No. I was here,” back at the other dog.
It’s hard to prevent a dog’s natural tendency to mark their territory. However, there are products on the market that you can spray to act as a deterrent.
2. Bad Habits
Dogs are creatures of habit, and when they are used to defecating in a particular place, they will choose similar areas to poop and pee. For example, if you live in a rainy area and the dog has the option to poop on concrete out of the rain, they may choose to go there instead of in the yard.
Even after the rain goes away and life gets back to normal, those habits might stick, and the dog may choose to poop anywhere they see concrete.
The best way to break a dog’s bad habits is to build new ones. So, instead of getting your dog in trouble for pooping on the concrete, redirect them to the grass instead. Also, ensure you’ve cleaned up the concrete so the dog doesn’t associate the scent with a bathroom area.
3. Tall Grass
Sometimes, we neglect the yard chores, and the grass grows out of control. Some dogs enjoy a bathroom break in tall grass. It gives them privacy and keeps them out of sight.
However, most dogs don’t want their butt being tickled by grass while going to the bathroom, especially if you’ve previously always kept the grass short. It comes back to their routine—if short grass is the norm, that’s what your dog will expect.
Cutting the grass is the simplest solution if the tall grass is driving your dog to the concrete walkway.
4. Grass is Wet or Frozen
Have you ever used an outhouse in the middle of the winter? If you haven’t, we wouldn’t recommend it. Most dogs are uncomfortable in cold temperatures, especially if the grass is wet or frozen. Some dogs are stubborn, and they will hold their poop until the conditions improve, while others find somewhere else to go, like your cement walkway or the driveway.
Dogs don’t enjoy getting their paws wet, muddy, or cold. So, if it’s wet or cold, the grass could be uncomfortable for them.
There isn’t anything we can do to control the weather. However, if there is a spot in your yard that doesn’t get as much rain or isn’t frozen, encourage your dog to go to the bathroom in those spots.
5. Age
If there isn’t any apparent reason your dog has begun pooping on concrete, and they have usually done their business on the grass, their age is a potential issue. If your dog is young, you can rule this one out. However, bathroom training may only be one problem if your furry friend is a senior.
Just like humans, dogs can also get dementia. When their cognitive function declines, they start to do strange things and act out of character, like when they go to the bathroom on concrete, for example.
Age-related illnesses like this demonstrate the importance of taking your dog for regular checkups at the vet. A vet can determine if cognitive decline is the root of your dog’s issues.
We can’t cure old age, but we can give our dogs the love and support to make them comfortable in their old age.
6. Arthritis
Typically, arthritis is another problem we expect to see in an older dog, but it’s not limited to age. Pooping on grass may be the easiest thing to do for your dog. It might be hard to imagine, but if they are in a lot of pain, walking out into the yard could be difficult because it is soft and uneven. So, they use the sidewalk as a bathroom instead because it’s flat and hard.
There is no cure for arthritis, but if you think your dog may be suffering from it, you can talk to your vet about medication to ease the pain. Other things that help with arthritis pain are a good diet and gentle exercise.
7. Untrained Puppy
If you’ve ever owned a puppy, you’re probably familiar with training pads and accidents around the house. Training outside is no different. If you take a puppy outside, they will poop and pee wherever it strikes their fancy until you show them where to go.
Unfortunately, unless you bought your dog from a reputable breeder, there is a good chance they were raised in a puppy mill. They don’t give their puppies the option of going on grass. The puppy usually lives in a concrete area and is given a newspaper to do their business. So, when you bring the puppy home, the most familiar thing to them may be your sidewalk.
House training a puppy takes commitment and diligence. Once you train your puppy to use the grass as their bathroom, you should be good to go unless one of the other problems in this list pops up.
8. Negative Experience
When something bad happens to us, we learn to associate certain things with bad experiences. This is no different for dogs. Your backyard is filled with creepy crawlies that bite and sting. You probably wouldn’t like it if your ankle got bit while you were taking a poop! If that happens to a dog, they could relate the negative experience to pooping in the grass. Then, pooping on concrete becomes the safer option for them.
You can gently encourage your dog to use a different area of the yard as a bathroom to break this habit of concrete pooping.
How to Yard Train Your Dog
Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to get your dog to stop pooping on the concrete, or perhaps you want to train it to use the lawn before you have that problem. Either way, here are three tips for getting your dog yard trained.
Move Their Poop to The Lawn
If your dog has already picked up the bad habit of pooping on the sidewalk, one way is to move their poop to the area you want them to use. The dog will smell their scent and associate the spot with a safe place to poop.
Don’t forget to clean the concrete after you move the feces. Even after you move the poop, they will be able to smell it. If it becomes a problem, commercial cleaners are available to neutralize the smell better than washing it away with water. An enzymatic cleaner is a great option to eliminate odors effectively.
Accompany Them Outside
It’s more convenient to open the door and let your dog outside to do their business. But a great way to train them to poop on the grass is to go out with them. If they are obedient and come when they’re called, keep calling them to you where you want them to poop until they do. If a tougher approach is needed, keep them on the leash until they poop.
When they poop where you want them to, ensure you’re giving them extra love and praise so they associate doing their business in that spot with praise from their human.
Pee Pads Aren’t Only for Inside
If you have a puppy, you probably have extra pee pads around; if not, they aren’t very expensive to purchase. If your dog already has the bad habit of pooping on the sidewalk, place a puppy pad down. Then, you can move the pad further into the yard until you have the dog pooping where you want.
Again, the key is to praise your dog when they do what you’re asking.
Conclusion
As we’ve seen, there are several potential reasons that your dog has decided to start pooping on concrete. It may even be a combination of a few reasons. Dogs may not be able to understand us and have a conversation, but they can certainly correct their bad habits and learn appropriate ones. As long as you have the patience to correct their behavior, you can do it lovingly without causing more problems.
Featured Image Credit: a katz, Shutterstock
