Hi, I am posting here after a long time and a lot has happened during this time. To cut the long story short I moved to the Netherlands for my career and my husband and Charlie is back in India only for some time and will join me here this year(Yayyy). When my husband visited me during this period Charlie stayed at his Grand parent's place on and off so in the past 1.5 years he has been traveling back and forth to 3 places - our home, my parent's home and my in-laws home. Since the past 6-7 months, he is with my husband only i.e. at his own home. Everything was fine but of late he has been peeing all over the house and we tried confining him to the restricted area and he was doing fine for the past 15 days with no accidents and my husband let him open in the house and he again peed all over the house. My husband is losing his patience and saying I have been trying hard but he is back to peeing and I think it's gonna stay that way so I am gonna live with it as I love him. I am worried about this habit of his and dont know why he keeps doing that since last 1 month or so. Please help me with this and let me know how can I make him back to his habit of just peeing outside on his walk and not inside the house. (Sorry for such a long post) Love, Anna
Hi @ana_charlie Sorry to read about your problems. You must make sure that all of the urine is cleared up with an enzyme cleaner. Otherwise the dog will urinate where the odour lingers. Return to rewarding the dog when he urinate in the appropriate spot in the garden. Was your dog crate trained?
Hey thanks for your reply! Well he wasn't crate trained but we keep him confined to a certain area by either blocking him from the rest of the house or by putting him on a long leash for sometime. Will try to use enzyme cleaner and see if that helps.
Can you tell us a bit more about this peeing? Is he cocking his leg? Squatting? Is he aware he is peeing or is he incontinent? Is he peeing repeatedly in specific places or everywhere? Is this occurring throughout the day, or particularly at certain times of day? Does this occur when people are home or only when left alone? And so on....
Sure, he cocks his legs and is aware that he is peeing. He pees on the same spots when either he is left alone or is with someone and not confined to a single room, for example, my husband sitting in the bedroom watching TV then Charlie will slip out of the room will pee on the same spots in the living room or the kitchen or other room of the house etc. He can very well hold his pee as he holds easily for the whole night and doesn't go until he is taken out in the garden or open area of the house. But as soon as he is alone or not confined to a single room he pees on the same spots again.
So firstly, dogs are creatures of habit and they develop habits about where they like to pee. They often pick specific corners of the yard or field to toilet in, for example. Sometimes that's because these places smell like pee already, but sometimes it's just habit - that has become a pee-place. To prevent places that smell like pee: Thoroughly wash all the materials, locations, surfaces, curtains etc etc he is peeing on, with a biological laundry detergent. This contains enzymes which will break down the pee, so it no longer smells like pee. Dogs have very sensitive noses and what smells 'clean' to us, smells like a toilet to them. (I mean, if they can detect an iota of a smidgeon of a drug - as a drug detection dog - they can detect a bit of ammonia from pee.) To prevent the habit: Identify the locations or things he is weeing on, and prevent his access to them for an extended amount of time. This may mean repositioning furniture so he can't reach things, tying up curtains, putting chairs in front of where he'd usually toilet - in all ways, physically preventing him from reaching his favoured places. Taking this one step further, would be to use 'tethering' - which is something Sophia Yin was a big fan of. Basically - the dog is tethered to their owner ALL DAY. You can tie a puppy house line to your belt, for eg. They can lie down at the owner's side and sleep if the owner is sitting down or standing in one place - but they basically are right next to the owner all the time. This makes it pretty impossible to pee on things. At night or when the owner is out, they are crated. It is high maintenance - but it's about breaking a habit and it's not forever. Work out if there is a source of anxiety: Often male dogs cocking their legs on things, comes from insecurity. The dog is worried about something, and is making himself feel more comfortable by putting his scent on things. It might be caused by all the moving around you've been doing, leading to him feeling that no place is 'his place'. It might be due to a previous owner who owned a dog in the house you're now in, and he is unsettled by scent of this previous dog in his house. It might be due to a bitch in season nearby. If you can identify the cause of the anxiety, and remove it, that will help a great deal. You might want to get an Adaptil diffuser plugged in, in the room where he spends most of the time. Or try a course of a canine calming supplement with L-theanine in it (there is research that this is very calming, especially for intact males). If all else fails, you could temporarily try a belly-band to stop the habit of marking indoors - but you'd need to do that alongside all the above, for it to work when you move to leaving the belly band off.
No other dog as such but yes one old female dog lives next door but she has always been there and Charlie never behaved this way earlier.
Thank you so much for such a detailed answer. With the help of your suggestions, I am sure things will be fine soon!!
