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Common House Training Problems
By doglover | February 9, 2010
House coaching is one in all the areas of dog possession that’s most subject to misunderstanding, confusion, and just plain dread!
These days’s newsletter is going to deal with two of the foremost common issues surrounding the difficulty of house training:
- Submissive/excited urination
- Scent marking
Common house training downside 1: Submissive / excited urination
What is it?
A ‘submissive urinator’ is a dog that urinates on the floor and himself (and generally on you and any guests you will have!) in things of maximum excitement or stress – like when you return home at the end of the day, or when he’s being told off.
Why will it happen?
Puppies are the standard candidates for submissive/excited urination, but it’s not uncommon to work out adult dogs with the matter as well: typically, these are highly sensitive and timid dogs, and/or ones from a shelter/with a history of abuse (typically these last 2 go hand-in-hand.)
When does it happen?
Situations when an excited/fearful dog is possible to urinate:
- Greeting time once a chronic absence
- Play time
- The arrival of guests
- Stressful situations at home, eg arguments
- Throughout a correction (you’re telling him off)
- Sudden loud noises (thunder, fireworks)
What can I do about it?
Fortunately, it’s not difficult to “cure” your dog of his submissive/excited urination.
1st of all, you ought to take him to the vet to form sure there’s no medical reason for the difficulty (like diabetes or a bladder infection.)
Next, it’s time to require management of the matter:
- Limit his intake of water to help him control his bladder more effectively. Don’t limit his water intake over a prolonged period of time, but if you recognize there’s a scenario coming back that would normally lead to urination – for instance, you have guests coming back over, or are designing on a play session soon – take his water bowl away for a amount of time (maybe half an hour to an hour) before the event.
- When greeting your dog, keep it calm and mellow. The more excited he is, the more durable it’s for him to regulate his bladder, therefore don’t encourage him to get worked up: ignore him for the first few moments, or give him a neutral “hello”, a fast pat, and then go about creating yourself at home.
- It’s vital that you simply DO NOT punish or harshly correct your dog for this behavior. It’s not something that he will easily control, and he’s certainly not doing it on purpose. Once you catch him in the act, you can interrupt him (a firm “No!” followed by praise when he stops ought to suffice) however don’t punish him. Keep your cool, and try to be sympathetic: he doesn’t mean to try to to it, after all!
- If he urinates out of concern (submissiveness) when scolding him for another offense, try to require the stress levels down a notch by keeping a firm, authoritative, but not angry tone. Keep in mind, you’re addressing a sensitive, highly-strung dog: if you get angry or worry him more, the matter can worsen.
Common house coaching downside two: Scent marking
Scent marking – where a dog “marks” his or her territory with urine – is technically not truly a house coaching problem, since it’s based mostly on issues of dominance and territoriality instead of insufficient house coaching (a dog will be perfectly house trained however still mark within the house.)
However, as a result of – since the problem centers around the unwanted presence of urine in the house – it appears logical, during a way, to link this problem with house coaching: and since this is one in every of the most widespread issues among dog owners, we tend to thought it worthwhile to incorporate some practical advice.
Scent marking and lack of house training: how to differentiate between the 2
Your dog’s most likely scent marking, rather than genuinely relieving himself, if:
- The amount of urine made is comparatively little, and tends to be directed against vertical surfaces (walls, doors, etc)
- He’s male, unneutered, and at least five or six months old. Unneutered dogs are abundant more territorial than neutered ones –if you have an unneutered dog in the house, you can just about expect a sure quantity of scent marking. (Unspayed females also mark, but it’s less common; spayed and neutered dogs will conjointly exhibit marking behavior, however it’s relatively infrequent)
- It makes very little difference how typically he’s taken outside for a rest room break
- He frequently targets things that are new to the house: new possessions, guest clothing/footwear, etc
- You reside during a multi-dog household and there is conflict between two or more of the dogs
- There are other, unneutered or unspayed pets within the house
What to try to to regarding the matter?
Initial things initial: spay or neuter your dog(s) whilst you possibly can. If you’ll try this early enough – ideally, at six months of age – this usually halts marking altogether; however if your dog’s been marking for a chronic amount of time, she may continue to do so once being spayed or neutered, since a pattern of behavior can have been established.
Clean soiled areas thoroughly. Use a non-ammonia based mostly cleaner (as a result of it smells just like pee) and keep far from vinegar too (it smells similar to pee.) Oxi-Clean mixed with heat water is particularly effective; there also are plenty of economic cleaners designed specifically to lift pet stains and odors, that you can buy from pet stores and some supermarkets.
As a result of dogs tend to re-mark the same places, you’ll need to redefine the places that you recognize he’s marked to stop repeat offending.
You can do that during a number of ways in which:
- Feed him next to or on top of the spot
- Play with him there
- Groom him there
- Place his bed over or next to it
- Spend time there yourself: suspend out with a book or sit down and work
If there is rivalry between dogs in the household, you’ll want to require steps to resolve it. Any conflict is doubtless to be hierarchical in nature (a “power struggle”), which means that that each one you have got to do to stop the tension is concentrate to that dog seems to be additional dominant than the opposite one (which one eats first, gets the toys he/she needs, “stares down” another dog), and reinforce this position.
How to try and do this: feed the dominant dog first. Pet him/her first. Provide him/her a toy before anyone else gets one. This makes it clear to all or any dogs within the house which one extremely is the dominant dog – and when this hierarchy’s been recognizably established, territorial/dominant behaviors like scent marking often vanish overnight.
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