How to check poop.....

Yeah, they like their privacy.  You'll just have to make a point of taking him out after he eats and follow him.  Or put him on a long line and keep him close so he can't go far just for that purpose.  Especially if you need a sample for the vet.

For me, monitoring poop is a health check.  I gotta see it daily and I live on an acre and a half. 

Don't laugh...its true.

 I can tell you where each of mine go (eight inside dogs), when, and how, on the four acres or so they have to utilize.  Ben's the trickiest if I need to check on him, but thankfully I don't have to do a close check very often.  I can tell from a distance (as he's the farthest ranger, typically going out to the perimeters) whether he's doing something nice and normal, or having difficulties.

Maggie goes right by the back door.  So does Zhi, but Zhi has to have about five minutes of zoomies before she'll poop.

Cord deposits his in either the irises by the garage, or under the rhododendron.  Sometimes he'll go under the walnut tree.

Gus goes while on his walk down to the pond with hubby. 

Ted runs to the side of the house - either the lawn under my bedroom window (hmm, what's he saying there?), or under the lilacs under the kitchen window on the other side of the house. 

Lynn does her thing either under the Bradford pear, or down by the wellhouse shed thingie near the spiny Charlie Brown tree.  It depends on whether we've mowed well enough to suit her highness.

Bet poops "on the run" more or less in the front yard - usually backing up to one of the big trees (her favorite is the holly).

Coltrane also has to zoom for a while, and then does his thing down by the front gate. 

for the livestock guardian dogs, if I need to see someone poop, I let the sheep out and move them to a new area.  All three will immediately mark the perimeter of the new area with stool deposits. 

More than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure!  When and where and how they go, is one of the first things I learn about a dog.  It's easy to remember because once you start understanding the general principles, you can start seeing how personalities are reflected in their elimination patterns.   LOL!

I am impressed that you can identify which poops are from which dogs...lol.......

Niko, my lab, goes to poop twice a day, in the morning between 4:30 am and 7:00 am and in the late afternoon between 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm.  I walk him out and, he has gotten used to me telling him to "go poop" so he'll poop when I tell him to (between times noted above).  He will also go pee when I tell him to.  So.......... on a daily basis, I know the kind of poops or pees he has...lol.

P.S. - - now, I am trying to figure out how to teach my 9 month old daughter to poop/pee in her baby potty.  Actually, better yet, I need to figure out when she needs to go so I can teach her to use her baby potty.

 To me they may as well have nametags written on them!  Mostly it is by location though.  But there's other things - Ted and Ben both tend to dump, then sniff, then dump again - while both Cord and Bet tend to walk and drop as they go.  Gus goes all in one place - one stop dropper.  Zhi of course has teeny poops.  Maggie scuffs and tries to get grass and leaves over hers.   And so on.

On your PS - I was very casual about it.  My guys had opportunity a couple time a day, but I didn't encourage them to "perform".  Both of them simply decided one day (both just before their second b-day), to start going potty.  PJ suddenly decided to use pull-ups and kept them dry for the most part, while Joey walked in one day and announced he wanted "big boy underwear."  Straight from diapers.  I'll admit to great trepidation on that one, but I think he had exactly half a dozen accidents in the next few months, most of those being timing problems (not near a potty).