Our puppy Bentley will be a year old next weekend. Over the last couple of weeks he has started to mark things. I first started noticing it when our other dog is urinating he will stand right behind him and wait until he's done then walk right over and urinate on it. I do not allow him to stand right behind him but he will still go over and pee when he's done. I can't always prevent that as they go out potty a lot without us. That is not really bothering me, but he has started to mark things in the garage, on the patio, porch posts our car tires ect. The garage is NOT a place for sure we want him doing this. How do we stop this behavior? We do not want to have him neutered yet as others have suggested to us.
I don't think neutering makes much difference anyway. Our spayed lab marks everything on walks, but fortunately not in the house, garage, stores etc. Just where it is more or less appropriate outside. The neutered Sammy we dog sit is the same. We have had another dog mark something in our house, but it has only happened once or twice in many years. I'm not sure how to stop this in inappropriate places. Hopefully some others have ideas.
Thank you, we are lucky so far not in house but for obvious reasons we don't want him to in garage. He is our 3rd male lab and the other 2 do not do that other than the occasion on walks but not like Bentley. Thank you!
Hi Mom2labs Accoriding to the matching law the ratio of the average rate of reinforcement equals the ratio of the amount of the behaviours. So, if you want to increase the rate of marking in desired places and thereby reduce the rate of marking in undesired places, you should use your bridging stimulus (click or Yep or whatever you use) when the dog urinates in the desired place and give one or two treats.
We have 3 'parts' to our garden. The bottom two areas are no-piddle zones! The boys are all taught to pee on command ("hurry up"). If they were to pee in the bottom gardens, I would just say "no no", walk them up to to the top, tell them to pee, then praise them.
That makes total sense!! I guess we do that without realizing it lately, but maybe I should take some treats to be sure. Thankfully, he hasn't done it again in the garage but we will keep on it.
