CaptainBlue Posted November 9, 2004 Report Share Posted November 9, 2004 I have a wonderful little blue merle BC. He is about 6 months old and already smart as a whip! My wife and I got him when he was about 6 weeks. He has been the easiest dog to train. He potty trained right off the bat...he crate trained flawlessly...despite his young age, he already catches a frisbee and brings it back like an adult BC. He is absolutely amazing! However - he pees when a guest comes in the house....most of the time its just a few drops on the carpet, but sometimes its a puddle...and sometimes its on the guests pant leg and shoes. I realize he is still just a pup and this is probably just a phase but I'm just wondering if anyone knows any methods I could try to maybe get him to stop...or will he just grow out of it......or will it stop when he's neutered.....any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pippin Posted November 9, 2004 Report Share Posted November 9, 2004 Hi, it sounds like submissive urination that your pup is doing. Many pups that age do this when meeting new people; either from excitement or being nervous or scared, or a combination of these. At that age, his bladder still isn't very big and even though he is house trained now he still can't hold it for very long, especially when excited. The amount of urine can vary with submissive urination such as you described, anywhere from just a few drops to a full piddle. You could try taking him outside to go potty before a guest comes inside the house to make sure his bladder is empty beforehand. Give your guests a treat to give him and instruct them to speak softly and pet him gently, but let your pup be the one to approach them. Make all his experiences with meeting new people positive and light and introduce him to different types of people (different genders, races, sizes, ages, etc.) and with time and positive reinforcement and training it should stop. Most puppies do this, it's nothing to be concerned about at this stage as it doesn't sound like it's caused by any medical reasons. My BC mix and my purebred Border Collie I have now both did it, and in the case of the purebred she still does it at 16 weeks as she is shy and timid. She becomes nearly paralyzed with fear, shrinks away and urinates whenever she has met new people, so I took a different approach. What I have done with her that's helped is just take her out in the driveway on her leash during times I know people will be there (such as neighbors coming home from work, the mail lady, the schoolbus dropping kids offf) and sit with her in the driveway and let her watch them from a distance. After she got used to that, I started to take her for walks around the neighborhood again during times when people will be present and walk past them at a slightly closer distance. On our very second walk, she went up to two people on her own and let them pet her. Those people had dogs and I think that may have been part of why as she's never gone up to other people willingly before; she smelled their dogs on them. I am going to gradually close the distance until she is able to walk right past people without getting scared, and then select a few people who are fairly soft spoken and laid back to give her a treat and pet her. We are progressing quite nicely with this method, but our progression is all based on what she is comfortable with. I am taking it slowly with her as shy as she is; it's easiest and best to keep socialization and training fun and positive for her rather than experiencing setbacks and trauma to her from putting her into situations where she's not comfortable. I've found women to be better to introduce a pup to for their first experiences with people instead of men or kids; for most dogs anyway. Most pups get scared of big men with loud voices and scared of kids with shrill voices who try to poke them, pull their tail and ears, pick them up, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaelinTess Posted November 9, 2004 Report Share Posted November 9, 2004 My BC Tess will submissively urinate when she meets people or a dog she considers scary. She has done this since age 7.5 weeks. She is now a year and 3 months old and still does it, but not as much and not as often. Our solution was to just have her greet people outside and then when all the fuss is over, we all go inside. I did not mind cleaning up but I did not want her to think it was okay to pee in the house under any circumstances. Some dogs do this when they are super-excited as well. Another thing that has helped us is to have Tess go potty outside before greeting people (though we still have her greet people outside since she still urinates submissively). I have heard that some dogs grow out of this and some don't. The only time it was a bother for me was in the first obedience class we took (got tired of carrying around the nature's miracle and paper towels everywhere ). After that she seemed to do a bit better in the other two classes we took. Allie & Tess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBlue Posted November 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2004 Thank you both very much, I appreciate your input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eileen Stein Posted November 10, 2004 Report Share Posted November 10, 2004 Above all, don't scold him or punish him. That just makes submissive urination worse, because it makes the pup try harder to be submissive. He will almost certainly grow out of it, but it takes some pups longer than others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBlue Posted November 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2004 Thank you, thats reassuring - I sure hope you are right. I don't scold or punish him when he does it because I feel like he truly can't help it. Like I said, he's such a perfect dog in every other way, I can certainly live with this small problem for awhile longer, until he grows out of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaelinTess Posted November 13, 2004 Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Tess is perfect in every other way as well. We just plan ahead and we cope just fine. (: Today, for example, we went to the vet for shots and Tess did not pee anywhere!! YAY TESS!! She also did not bark or growl at the vet this time. She also was willing to eat treats this time. She did not take them from strangers but she did actual WAG her tail in a friendly way at the technician. Poor doggie. Scared of everything! She always has been. We are going to go in to the vet's office regularly and use the scale so that place is not so scary. If your dog is not afraid of everything or shy, it is very likely he'll grow right out of the submissive urination. Tess probably won't grow out of it, but we don't care. She's such a delightful dog in every other way. Allie & Tess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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