Perhaps you aren’t at home during the day to take your puppy outside to potty or maybe it is insistent upon relieving itself in your house instead of when you take it outside. Whatever the reason, using training pads as a way to teach your puppy not to go on the floor can solve your problem. Once your puppy learns that the pad is the only appropriate area to potty, it will cease going on your floors. 1Designate an area for your puppy while you are teaching it to potty on the pad. If necessary, set up a baby gate to confine it to a certain area, particularly one with hard floors that are easy to clean.

2Spread training pads all over the surface of the confined area of floor at first so that the puppy won’t miss its mark. If you just put one or two pads in the area, you can’t expect the puppy to know that’s where you want it to go.

3Remove soiled training pads and replace them with fresh ones as needed. Make note if there’s a specific area the dog tends to relieve itself upon.

4Remove a training pad every three days, but not the ones that cover the areas the puppy seems to favor.

5Keep removing training pads every three days until there’s just one left. Discard and replace the training pad as needed.

People may find this habit hard to understand, but many dogs tend to indulge in eating feces — their own or those of other animals.

Here are a few reasons why your dog might eat poop:

Mother dogs eat their pups’ stool to keep the whelping area clean, and pups may mimic this behavior. This behavior tends to fade during adulthood, but some dogs continue throughout life.

Some dogs indulge due to boredom, stress or because they consider it a sort of delicacy.

Dogs have fewer taste buds than humans and that may be part of why they seem to be less selective than we are in regards to what they will put into their mouths.

In some cases there may be an underlying medical cause, such as lack of sufficient nutrients in the diet. Be sure to check with your vet to rule this out as a possible cause.

ThinkstockIf your dog is eating his own poop: This problem is fairly easy to resolve. Since it’s easy to predict elimination when your dog is on a walking schedule, promptly discard feces so your dog does not have access to them. If possible, bring a toy with you to distract your dog as you clean up (allowing him to focus on you cleaning up his stool may inadvertently increase its perceived value).

If your dog is eating your cat’s poop: Put the litter box in an area where your dog can’t have access to it or confine your dog in an area away from the box.

Regardless of whose stool your dog is eating, avoid reprimanding them for doing so, as this may result in your dog simply waiting to do it when you are gone. If you catch your dog, try to remain calm, as your urgency might exacerbate the problem.