THE CANINE BEHAVIOR SERIES By Kathy Diamond Davis Author and Trainer

About the time you have your young male dog or older male pup housetrained, you realize he has started urinating in the house again. What’s wrong with him? Is he doing it because he’s mad that you go out and leave him at home?

You’re pregnant, you have a new baby, someone with a baby in diapers comes for a visit, you get a new cat or dog, a family member moves into or out of the house, you move to a new house, your schedule changes—and just when something major is going on in your life, the dog starts urinating in the house! Is he getting back at you because he wants attention?

Urine marking is a normal, instinctive dog behavior, mostly in males but also sometimes in females. Like a lot of other natural dog behaviors, we need to modify it as one of the fascinating ways that humans and dogs learn to cooperate for rewarding lives together.

We take the ability of dogs to adapt to our lifestyles for granted until a behavior like this one gets our attention. Some dogs are so talented and motivated to figure us humans out that we don’t even notice or give them credit for amazing things they do. If you have a male who doesn’t urine mark in your home, take a moment to thank him! If your male dog needs some help from you, as most of them will in life at least a time or two, read on for how to do it smoothly.

Why It Happens

Dogs do not consider elimination to be an insult. On the contrary, the dog who urine marks may well be stepping up to offer his life if necessary to protect his pack. Instead of saying “Get out of here, new baby,” he may be saying, “This small one, too, is under my protection.”

If you have a male and one or more female dogs, watch how he urinates along the fence, outside the marks of all the girls. Likely you’ll occasionally see him go over and urinate over the spot where she has just urinated—or, oops, hasn’t quite finished! Watch her reaction. She probably feels more secure as a result of this action of his. How confusing it must be for a dog whose owner flies into a hissy fit at the same action!

Dogs don’t actually “understand” housetraining. Dogs with what we consider normal instincts who have been raised properly for the formation of housetraining habits are following instincts when they start to toddle out of the sleeping, eating and playing area to eliminate.

A small dog’s concept of this area may not include the back bedroom or the formal living room. To him, that can seem to be outside the area needed for living space or as the pack’s den headquarters. A larger dog tends to prefer marking outside the house, given your help to get there on a good schedule.

Ironically, people often get small dogs because they want a cleaner house. If easy housetraining and minimal indoor elimination is a priority with you, a tiny male dog is not a good adoption choice.

Dogs get a lot of information from urine scent. Among dogs, it helps to keep the peace. We don’t even know all the things dogs can detect from urine scent, but they certainly can tell a male from a female, a neutered dog from an intact one, a female in heat or coming into heat, and whether the other dog is sick or well. Just as a human reacts to a sight according to past experiences with that sight, a dog’s reaction to a particular scent is heavily influenced by the dog’s experiences. For example, a male dog who has previously mated a female will be far more excited by the scent of a female in heat than a neutered male who never mated. Thus dogs react to a lot of scents we don’t even know are there.

Scents can be overwhelming to dog instincts. A male dog is highly likely to urine mark in the presence of a female dog in heat—possibly even quite a distance away. He’s also highly likely to urine mark where another dog has urinated inside your home, whether that dog is male or female. Two tiny male dogs living together are likely to appear to be in competition to see who can urinate in the house the most. Is this about fighting? Probably not. It may even be their way of presenting a united front in defending what they view as their pack.

Like most dog behavior, urine marking has to be taken in context to get some idea of the cause in any given situation. We never know everything about the cause. Dogs are complex, with some behaviors strongly instinctive and some learned. Like humans, they do things automatically at times, and at other times they have an intention. It’s not useful to think of a dog’s intentions as “spite” or “anger.” Fear, protectiveness, excitement, prey drive, bonding and other survival instincts are much more likely explanations.

In nature, urine marking provides boundary signs for a pack. When humans say that dogs are social animals, they may think dogs living in the wild would all happily play together. Dogs are pack animals. They form separate social groups to cooperate for survival, which includes hunting for food as well as rearing their young. A pack has a territory it defends from other canines, which helps spread the animals out over a wider range for a better chance that all of them will be able to find enough to eat.

Urine also helps males and females find one another at mating time, since a female dog is only fertile for a short time once (in the wild and some domesticated dogs) or twice a year. Only then is she receptive to mating. Male dogs are instinctively drawn to the scent, testosterone stimulates them to respond to it, and they also form beliefs about the scent from experience.

The male’s urine sends messages to her as well as to other dogs. The dog with the best chance of resisting the urge to mark in this situation is the neutered male who has never mated. The intact male, whether or not he has been mated, may have great difficulty refraining from urine marking in the house. He may be so disturbed that he can’t even eat.

Urine marking is not about us. Dogs are not trying to tell us things by urinating in the house, other than perhaps that they are sick, or that they are willing to give their lives to protect us. Some of our choices cause our dogs to have problems with urine marking, but they do not do it out of spite or anger toward their owners.

How to Handle It

Probably the single most effective thing you can do to help your dog resist urine marking inside your home is to have your veterinarian neuter him prior to his forming this habit. At least one study has shown that neutering a dog at any age will help, so it seems that the testosterone of being intact plays a role in urine marking.

Neutering does not eliminate the need for training and management, though, particularly if the habit of urine marking has become strongly formed prior to the surgery. No one can guarantee that neutering a dog is going to magically cure this problem. But if you do not neuter a tiny male dog, your chances of ever fully housetraining him are greatly reduced. They are reduced even more if you use him at stud. Larger male dogs have a better chance of making it outside to mark, with good management from you, even if they are used for breeding.

Besides the urine marking problem, neutered male dogs are often capable of tying with female dogs in heat. This should not be allowed to happen due to the risk of injury and even of sexually-transmitted diseases. The easiest arrangement for most people to live with is to spay the females and neuter the males. If you do keep an intact female, she and any male, intact or neutered, need to be separated whenever she is in heat and no adult human is closely supervising them. Another complication is that sometimes people don’t realize the female is in heat until it’s too late.

Consult your veterinarian for the best time to neuter your male. Try to avoid leaving the tiny male intact past the age of a year for the best chance at housetraining.

Multiple dogs of the same sex will often fight when kept together, especially if they are terriers, and males will stimulate each other to urine mark in the house. If the males are small and/or terriers, the risk of urine marking is increased. Fights among multiple female dogs in the same household tend to be worse than male fights, but the females are less likely to urine mark.

Larger male dogs are instinctively inhibited against hurting female dogs and against hurting smaller dogs, as well as being less tempted to urine mark than small males. When adding a second dog to a home with a small female dog, consider the advantages of making that second dog a larger male.

Keep in mind that medical problems in the male dog or in another dog he lives with can trigger urine marking. Especially if this represents a change in behavior for a mature dog, he needs to be medically checked, as does any other dog in the household who might be the trigger, such as a female dog with a urinary tract or uterine infection.

Don’t let anyone talk you into punishing a dog for housetraining problems, including urine marking. Dogs do not learn housetraining from punishment. Instead they learn to distrust you and possibly all humans. You can ruin a dog’s temperament and create aggression toward humans by punishing for housetraining accidents.

Dogs who are punished in housetraining learn to hide from people to eliminate, which makes training even harder. If you supervise properly, you may catch a dog having an accident. In that case, interrupt the dog with a calm “No—let’s go outside,” and RUSH out the door with the dog. If you are using an indoor spot at that time, give that a name, too, such as “No—use your box.”

When you get the dog to the spot, the goal is to get the dog to finish there. For success outside, give excited praise and sometimes a treat. For success inside, give quiet praise. The outside habit is the one you want really strong. The inside habit will likely be changed later to outside. A box of grass sod on a condo terrace can be helpful in building the outdoor habit and reducing the risk of indoor accidents.

If your timing is really perfect, you’ll get the dog outside before elimination even starts inside. This forms stronger habits more quickly. Applying yourself diligently to housetraining with positive methods pays off big time, and slacking off is a big mistake. People get rid of dogs more often for housetraining problems than for aggression! Good housetraining means keeps faith with your dog.

When It May Be Something Else

The male having accidents in the house could have a urinary tract infection, prostate enlargement or infection, mental confusion, heavy sleep, mobility problems that make it hard or painful for him to get outside in time or painful to do so, or other illness.

Sometimes we are mistaken about which dog is eliminating in the house, and people often miss some of the spots. A video camera can help you be sure. Another possible way to check is to confine one dog at a time to another area and rotate them so that you know only one dog had access to the target area at the time.

Separation anxietyis a major cause of housetraining accidents. Punishment when you come home and find this or anything else that displeases you will make it worse.

The difference between urine marking and the dog not being housetrained can be hard to determine, and it’s not really important to know, since both are handled the same way. The best housetraining results include the following factors:

1. The nest shared by mother dog and puppies is kept clean, and they all have space to get away from the nest for elimination.

2. The puppy is never kept confined in urine and feces at any age.

3. The puppy has at least some positive experiences eliminating outdoors starting in young puppyhood. That requires access to a safe place that will not expose a young puppy with an immature and unvaccinated immune system to contagious diseases.

4. Housetraining starts in your home the minute the puppy gets there. There is no postponing it and leaving the puppy loose to potty all over the house. Every accident in the house confuses the puppy’s habits. Housetraining starts as a positive practice and the owner diligently continues to help the puppy hit the target, be it inside or outside. The early experiences are critical.

Small dogs in particular become victims to people postponing housetraining. The messes are small and people figure they’ll stay small so it’s easier to just to clean it up. Eventually they realize odor and mess are unacceptable to them, but by this time they have made the task of housetraining that dog difficult to impossible.

All the scent must be removed from the house, too, using a bacterial enzyme odor eliminator product such as Nature’s Miracle. Lack of housetraining is the major reason people get rid of small dogs, so failing to housetrain a puppy right from the start is a huge disservice to the dog.

5. If an indoor elimination method (papers, pads, dog litter box) must be used because there is no clean outdoor place available or the owner has to leave longer than the puppy can hold it, this is not continued for longer than several weeks.

6. The puppy is taken out at least once per hour whenever the owner is home and awake until housetraining is complete. After that, the schedule that works well for that dog is used, with the owner making sure the dog has plenty of chances outside.

7. House freedom is increased gradually, and dialed back whenever it’s evident that the dog cannot handle that many rooms or that amount of space. When your dog is not confined in an area where the dog is reliable not to eliminate in your house, you need to be in the same room with the dog, supervising closely.

One supervision aid is to leash the dog to your waist for a half hour or so at a time. This also increases your dog’s bond with you, ability to settle calmly in the house, and your mutual skill at moving together with a leash.

8. All accidents are promptly deodorized from the dog’s nose, not just the much weaker human sense of smell. If used immediately, undiluted clear vinegar will work. It needs to go deeply into the carpet and then either allowed to air dry, or just blotted up by stepping on newspaper, fabric, towels, etc. that are placed over the spot.

It will smell of vinegar in the room until it dries, but that is necessary. You can avoid the vinegar odor by using a bacterial enzyme odor eliminator instead. If you do that, though, you lose the benefit of the vinegar scent in discouraging the dog from using the spot again. But if you miss the chance to treat the spot when it is still very fresh and wet, vinegar will not neutralize it and you will need the bacterial enzyme product.

Don’t scold the dog when you clean, and it doesn’t matter whether the dog sees you clean or not. Be careful never to get vinegar in a dog’s eyes, as it is an irritant to eyes. For that reason, don’t spray vinegar at a dog’s face—and lemon juice is even worse because it is more acidic.

9. The dog is praised, lifelong, for getting housetraining right. Housetraining is a lot of work, it is complicated, and it is easy to confuse your dog. Done right, it helps you get off to an excellent start with all training and helps you form a good bond.

Don’t get a dog until and unless you are ready and able to meet the dog’s elimination needs. You won’t be happy, and you can ruin the dog’s life. Often an adult dog already housetrained is a much better choice for a particular owner than a young puppy who will need a full housetraining course and won’t be able to wait long at all between outings.

Sometimes a cat is the perfect choice. Kittens don’t need much more help to adapt their elimination instincts to indoors than being encouraged in the litter box and you keeping the box clean and easily accessible. Cats don’t need to go outdoors at all, and are as therapeutic in many cases as dogs. They are the perfect condo companion animals.

Training or Management?

Some tiny males will never be able to handle the whole house. Baby gates, closed doors, and “playpen” arrangements such as exercise pens can be used as lifelong management tools if needed. Many do well with a gated bathroom or kitchen doorway. If the dog climbs or jumps one gate, you can stack another gate above it.

Belly bands or male dog pants with or without pad liners can help with management. The dog can’t wear these all the time, due to risks of infection and of him chewing and eating the absorbent materials. Occasionally people find these help interrupt a dog’s urine marking habit, but realistically they will probably only serve as a management tool.

You can sometimes help avoid some housetraining accidents by spending time in little-used rooms with your tiny male dog. If you feed and play with him there, it will seem to him more like part of the pack’s den area and less like “out in the boonies” where elimination feels natural.

Some breeds are not as naturally inclined to keep their areas clean as other breeds. Individual Beagles and Dachshunds can fall into this category, though certainly not all dogs of these breeds. This trait can mean a dog will eliminate in the dog bed and lay in it, even with access to other areas.

Dogs of any breed who have been confined in their own waste will do this, too. It’s a problem for commercially bred dogs and also for those who have been through the pet shop system.

It’s the reason that you need to stop crating a dog when you start to see a pattern of eliminating in the crate, too. If you continue to crate the dog, you will damage the dog’s cleanliness instincts, possibly cause medical problems, and put the dog at risk of separation anxiety.  Some dogs also become unable to tolerate a crate lifelong. The dog needs to be confined in some other manner for long enough to restore cleanliness instincts.

Happily Ever After

Urine marking is a housetraining matter. In contrast, urinary incontinence, illness, and submissive urination are not housetraining issues, other than to make sure scent is properly removed so they won’t CAUSE housetraining problems.

Urine marking is simple to deal with in that you handle it by the same supervision, scent control, alertness to triggers, praise, checking for medical problems, and other basics you use to properly housetrain a dog in the first place. You partner with your dog to make sure he gets the help he needs from you. You realize his instincts are causing the behavior, not some willful intention to insult you. It’s not about you.

Even the most housetrained of large, neutered male dogs will urine mark under certain circumstances, and it doesn’t mean this will become a regular problem. He may urine mark one or two times when he moves to a new home, and then no more. You can help keep it from happening again by dousing the spot with clear, undiluted vinegar.

He is likely to urine mark when visiting inside someone else’s home, and you should keep him with you on leash to prevent this. He is also likely to urine mark anyplace you take him, unless you handle him in a way that prevents it.

A good way to minimize the risk of your dog marking indoors away from your home is to allow him to urinate only on your property except when you give him specific permission to use a specific spot at a specific time. Before leaving with him, take him to your yard (or the spot you normally use if you don’t have a yard) and cue him to eliminate, with your choice of words. “Go potty” is one option.

On your outing, even if you’re walking outdoors, interrupt him from lingering too long to check out scent that might trigger urination (you’ll get familiar with that body posture) by simply moving the walk along. If you’re out long enough that he will need to eliminate, find a polite spot to do that, and of course clean up after him. When you get home, immediately take him to his usual spot.

Take him to his spot before and after EVERY outing, so that he learns he can count on you to do this. It helps him wait, and it helps him realize that he does need to eliminate if he possibly can when offered that chance BEFORE the outing, too.

If he is not expecting to urine mark on a walk outside, you can see how much easier it’s going to be to keep him from doing it in someone’s house, in the building at a dog event, in a health care facility on a therapy dog visit, etc. It’s a simple and highly effective practice.

A lot of small male dogs will always present some degree of challenge with the urine marking, but you can (and should!) keep your home clean and free of urine odor with good management. Large males who are managed well may actually have fewer accidents indoors than females, because males are less prone to urinary incontinence.

Life with a male dog can be great. Housetraining does not have to cost dogs their homes. It’s something we need to educate ourselves about, preferably before getting a dog. When you bring a dog home for the first time and every time, take him immediately to the right place to eliminate—and to make his mark.

Date Published: 4/30/2006 5:33:00 PM

    

Kathy Diamond Davis is the author of the book Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others. Should the training articles available here or elsewhere not be effective, contact your veterinarian. Veterinarians not specializing in behavior can eliminate medical causes of behavior problems. If no medical cause is found, your veterinarian can refer you to a colleague who specializes in behavior or a local behaviorist.