One interesting thing that's throwing a tiny wrench into my expectations is that Kody's potty habits are changing as he gets older. As a puppy he would poop either two or three times a day. After that, he settled on mostly two and sometimes one. But recently, one time a day is usually how much he poops.
This has confused me because I was used to him definitely having to poop in the morning and usually at night too. Now I'll keep him out longer in the morning thinking he must have to poop, but he doesn't. This is really new, I always used to think of pooping as an activity of urgent importance in the morning, and now it's not. I will bring him back in after peeing, and then I can leave for three or four hours and he will not even have to urgently go poop then.
I'm sure some of this has to do with the cold weather, which makes pooping not that important, relatively. But I guess some of it is just him getting older. One thing I always try to do is give him plenty of opportunity to relieve himself, because I know how bad it feels to have to go. But he seems fine with the two or three times a day we go outside. He usually has to pee in the morning, but not badly enough to preempt his first meal.
One thing I will give myself credit for is potty training. Kody is literally perfectly potty trained (no accidents at all†) and I think that's because I was on the ball with taking him out whenever he needed it. We have a good reward system for pottying outside that I just kept going even after he was trained. (Heck other people give their dog treats for nothing, I give my dog a treat after he potties outside to reinforce the good behavior. Makes sense right?) Now more often it's me luring him to go outside because it's a good time for me, rather than him choosing. For instance, if it's 8:00pm and he hasn't asked to go outside since 10:00am and I want to watch a movie uninterrupted by potty breaks. I guess that's good, it fits into my life better, it's just feels so strange because it's so different.
† Once right after we moved Kody went pee in the guest room he had never been in while it was a maze of moving boxes. He did it right in front of me and quite casually so I assume he was confused by the move.