Does your dog create pee puddles when he sees you coming home?
It could be that he is experiencing submissive or excitement urination, both considered to be behavioral peeing problems in dogs. As pet parents, it is important that we understand the difference between the two and educate ourselves on how to manage and ward them off.
EXCITEMENT PEEING
Excitement urination happens mostly on greetings and playtime. This occurs in young dogs who still don’t have complete control of their bladders.
Signs
- Dog pees when feeling excited and is less than one year old
- Dog pees when feeling excited, mostly on meeting other people and during playtime.
Managing the behavior
If your dog has not yet reached the age of one year, he’ll probably just outgrow excitement peeing if it’s addressed the right way. The challenging part now is how you can properly avoid wat triggers his excitement.
- If possible, take your dog to outdoor playtime a few times in a week. Make sure that before he engage himself in play, he relieves himself first. This will minimize accidents, but if ever he has one (or two or three), never ever punish him. Just stop him from doing so and lead him to where he should pee and then give him a reward.
- When your dog leaks when you come home, keep your greetings calm and low-key. No loud baby talks, hugging or play fighting. If this doesn’t work, ignore him and only greet him only when he has calmed down.
- Take frequent walks
SUBMISSIVE PEEING
A lot different from excitement peeing, submissive peeing is often seen in unconfident, anxious and nervous dogs. Their peeing is triggered whenever they are approached by someone/a fellow dog or whenever they are yelled at, disciplined, or punished. Some dogs who exhibit submissive peeing are found out to have a bad history of receiving cruel punishments for accidents they’ve caused.
Signs
- Dog will have the tendency to lower his body, cower, tuck his tail, and then pee.
- Dog avoids eye contact and pees whenever he’s feeling scared.
Managing the behavior
If your dog has submissive peeing problems, it is important that you build his self confidence. These dogs might have been traumatized from punishments for peeing. Scolding/punishing your dog for accidents will only worsen the situation and increase peeing mistakes more!
- Give your dog plenty of attention to boost his confidence
- Use positive reinforcement when teaching him simple tricks
- Lower yourself to your dog’s level and scratch him on his chin or give a playful pat
Something else to consider to help you manage these behavioral peeing is to use dog diapers (for females) or belly bands (for males). The whole process of helping your dog overcome these peeing problems does not happen overnight. So while you are on it, you can let your dog wear it before playtime, during walks or whenever some visitors are coming over.
Dog diapers/belly bands will not only save your floor, carpets and rugs but will also save you from those messy cleanups and dog urine smell. It will help remind your dog that if he pees, it’s okay to not run away and not feel guilty about it.
