Hi fellow Pitbull lovers,
We adopted a sweet, roly-poly, Pitbull mix, Fiona, in November of last year. She had very recently been spayed in the shelter when we got her.
At first, she seemed like a potty trained champ and only peed/pooped outside. However, after a few weeks, she started going inside our apartment. We live in a city, so we don’t have access to a backyard, but take her on tons of walks each day. She does pee/poop outside and we always give her a treat when she does, but she still goes in the apartment regardless. We eventually trained her to use a button that says “Outside!” - thinking she didn’t know that she can tell us when she needs to go. She’s incredibly smart and learned that pretty quickly.
Now, she pushes the button about 50% of the time which means every couple hours I take her out and she does her business outside successfully. But in between these walks, she sometimes seems to not be able to hold it and will just go in the apartment and then immediately after, push the “outside” button (she doesn’t do that all the time, but sometimes). She also has been eating her poop (an added challenge here) but she only does that inside whereas she doesn’t even sniff it when she poops outside - so this makes me think she knows she’s not supposed to go inside and is trying to hide it by eating it.
We never get mad or give the peeing/pooping inside any reaction because we don’t want her to think she gets attention by doing that or develop fear around doing it, but she continues to eat her poop.
I’m wondering if this is a complication after spaying. She is my first dog in adulthood, but I feel like she is going to the bathroom a lot, more so than any dogs I had growing up.
I am worried about putting her on a medication, though, because she is very excitable and I read that some of the side effects can cause irritable behavior and with her being a pit, any sign of aggression is worrisome.
Perhaps I should just set up an indoor litter box situation for her? Not a huge fan of this option, but if it’s in her best interest, I will.
I’m sort of at my wits end with cleaning up her poop and pee multiple times a day. Any advice would be appreciated. I attached photos because she’s adorable ♥️