After publishing our article going over how to stop a dog from expressing its glands on a sofa, we have noticed a number of people reaching out and asking about why their dog keeps pooping on their sofa with this seeming to be a common problem that many dog owners are having.
With so many people seemingly having a problem with their dog pooping on their sofas, we have decided to publish this article with the goal of helping you not only work out why your dog is doing this but also how to stop the behavior.
The most common causes of a dog pooping on your sofa include health problems, poor diet, changes to your dog’s daily routine, old age, fear, anxiety, problems with food allergies, and not being let outdoors enough.
Thankfully, these do tend to be easy to correct resulting in your dog pooping outdoors without you having a messy clean up in your home.
As we covered in our article going over if Blue Buffalo causes diarrhea In dogs, over half of all dogs have an allergy to either beef, chicken, lamb or wheat with these being common ingredients in dog food that can cause your dog to poop uncontrollably where it sits, in this case on your sofa.
Due to this being a problem with your dog actually being allergic to an ingredient in the food mix, it doesn’t matter if you are using a high-quality dog food with the best ingredients if your dog has allergies to an ingredient, diarrhea, and accidents are sure to follow.
Is It Normal For A Dog To Poop On The Sofa?
It is not normal for a healthy dog to poop on your sofa and although accidents can happen, especially with puppies or senior dogs, the vast majority of dogs should not be pooping on your sofa.
If you do notice that your dog is pooping on your sofa then it is a sign that there is probably a problem with your dog, its diet or its environment that needs to be corrected as soon as possible.
If you have multiple dogs in your home then one dog pooping on your sofa can cause your other dogs to poop on your sofa too as your dogs look to mask each other’s scents.
Although this does tend to be rare, it can quickly get out of control resulting in your dogs essentially trying to out poop each other on your sofa so always be sure to correctly clean your sofa after an accident and use a dog poop fabric cleaner if required to totally remove the scent.
Puppies and senior dogs can have general problems due to their age with pooping in areas of your home where they normally wouldn’t so discouraging your dog or puppy from being on those areas can be the best path forward.
The problem with a senior dog who is pooping on your sofa due to old age is that it has probably been able to get on your sofa as it wishes for most of its life and suddenly trying to discourage this can cause confusion in your dog.
Why Does My Dog Keep Pooping On My Sofa?
The majority of the time when a dog poops on your sofa, it is not intentional and is due to a problem with the dog’s health, diet or environment causing your dog to poop on the sofa.
This can range from low-quality dog food to allergies to your dog’s food, various health problems with parasite infections being a common one to stress and anxiety in your dog’s environment causing it to poop randomly.
We know that the majority of people live a busy life these days but trying to stick to a regular routine with your dog’s walk is important to help keep its bowl movements predictable and prevent your dog from having accidents in your home while you are out at work.
There are apps such as Wag available that allow you to outsource dog walking services to people in your local area to make sure that your dog is getting plenty of walks and outdoor time if you do have to work lots.
If you do suspect that your dog may have having a health problem that is causing it to poop on your sofa or other areas of your home then we would highly recommend that you book a video call with a veterinarian to have them check your dog over.
These video calls can work out much cheaper than a trip to your local vet’s office while providing you with the same information with a couple of questions often being able to help narrow down any potential health problems that your dog may have.
How Do I Stop My Dog From Pooping On My Sofa?
It is usually easy to stop your dog from pooping on your sofa with the hardest part of the process narrowing down the cause of the sofa pooping.
Once you know if your dog is pooping on your sofa due to health problems, issues with its diet or environmental factors, it is generally easy to stop your dog pooping on your sofa.
We would imagine that a large number of our readers who are having problems with their dog pooping on the sofa could stop the problem by switching the food mix that their dog eats.
As we mentioned above, over half of all dogs have an allergy to at least one common ingredient in modern dog food mixes so you can often stick to the same high-quality dog food brand that you have always used with your dog but simply switch from the beef to the chicken flavor to see if it helps.
Statistically, a salmon and rice dog food mix has the lowest chances of triggering allergies in a dog so can be a relatively safe bet although around two percent of dogs will still have reactions to the food.
The rest of the potential problems that can cause your dog to poop on your sofa have been covered earlier in our article above and although they can take a little time to try and work out the actual issue, they are usually easy to fix in most cases.
The only problem that can’t easily be fixed is problems with senior dogs and their old age causing them to poop on your sofa but trying to discourage your dog from getting on the sofa may be able to help with this.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over why your dog keeps pooping on your sofa to an end and we hope that we have been able to help you. In the majority of cases, it is usually easy to stop a dog from pooping on your sofa with the most common cause being allergies to the food that you are feeding your dog, especially if you have recently changed the food mix or treat product that you give to your dog.
