Common House Training Problems
House training is one among the areas of dog possession that’s most subject to misunderstanding, confusion, and simply plain dread!
Nowadays’s newsletter goes to accommodate two of the foremost common problems surrounding the difficulty of house coaching:
- Submissive/excited urination
- Scent marking
Common house training problem one: Submissive / excited urination
What is it?
A ‘submissive urinator’ is a dog that urinates on the floor and himself (and typically on you and any guests you’ll have!) in situations of utmost excitement or stress – like when you come back home at the end of the day, or when he’s being told off.
Why will it happen?
Puppies are the usual candidates for submissive/excited urination, however it’s not uncommon to determine adult dogs with the problem similarly: typically, these are highly sensitive and timid dogs, and/or ones from a shelter/with a history of abuse (usually these last 2 go hand-in-hand.)
When will it happen?
Things when an excited/fearful dog is possible to urinate:
- Greeting time when a protracted absence
- Play time
- The arrival of guests
- Stressful things at home, eg arguments
- During a correction (you’re telling him off)
- Sudden loud noises (thunder, fireworks)
What will I do regarding it?
Fortunately, it’s not troublesome to “cure” your dog of his submissive/excited urination.
1st of all, you must take him to the vet to make positive there’s no medical reason for the issue (like diabetes or a bladder infection.)
Next, it’s time to take management of the problem:
- Limit his intake of water to help him control his bladder a lot of effectively. Don’t prohibit his water intake over a protracted period of your time, but if you recognize there’s a situation coming back which would normally result in urination – as an example, you’ve got guests coming back over, or are coming up with on a play session soon – take his water bowl away for a amount of time (perhaps 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 is for him to control his bladder, thus don’t encourage him to induce worked up: ignore him for the primary few moments, or give him a neutral “hello”, a quick pat, and then go regarding making yourself at home.
- It’s necessary that you simply DO NOT punish or harshly correct your dog for this behavior. It’s not one thing that he can simply control, and he’s definitely not doing it on purpose. Once you catch him within the act, you can interrupt him (a firm “No!” followed by praise when he stops ought to suffice) but don’t punish him. Keep your cool, and try to be sympathetic: he doesn’t mean to do it, once all!
- If he urinates out of fear (submissiveness) when scolding him for one more offense, try to require the stress levels down a notch by keeping a firm, authoritative, however not angry tone. Bear in mind, you’re addressing a sensitive, highly-strung dog: if you get angry or worry him more, the matter can worsen.
Common house training drawback 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 problems of dominance and territoriality instead of insufficient house coaching (a dog can be perfectly house trained however still mark within the house.)
But, because – since the problem centers round the unwanted presence of urine in the house – it looks logical, during a method, to link this problem with house training: and since this is often one of the most widespread issues among dog house owners, we have a tendency to thought it worthwhile to incorporate some practical advice.
Scent marking and lack of house coaching: the way to differentiate between the two
Your dog’s probably scent marking, instead of genuinely relieving himself, if:
- The quantity of urine produced is relatively little, and tends to be directed against vertical surfaces (walls, doors, etc)
- He’s male, unneutered, and a minimum of five or six months old. Unneutered dogs are much a lot of territorial than neutered ones –if you’ve got an unneutered dog within the house, you can just about expect a sure quantity of scent marking. (Unspayed females conjointly mark, but it’s less common; spayed and neutered dogs can conjointly exhibit marking behavior, but it’s relatively infrequent)
- It makes 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 live during a multi-dog household and there’s conflict between two or a lot of of the dogs
- There are more, unneutered or unspayed pets in the house
What to try and do concerning the matter?
First things first: 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; but if your dog’s been marking for a protracted period of your time, he or she might continue to try and do thus when being spayed or neutered, since a pattern of behavior can have been established.
Clean soiled areas thoroughly. Use a non-ammonia based cleaner (because 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 are masses of commercial cleaners designed specifically to lift pet stains and odors, that you can purchase from pet stores and some supermarkets.
As a result of dogs tend to re-mark the same places, you’ll want to redefine the places that you recognize he’s marked to forestall repeat offending.
You can do that in an exceedingly number of ways:
- Feed him next to or on prime of the spot
- Play with him there
- Groom him there
- Place his bed over or next to it
- Spend time there yourself: droop out with a book or sit down and work
If there is rivalry between dogs within the household, you’ll would like to require steps to resolve it. Any conflict is possible to be hierarchical in nature (a “power struggle”), that means that all you’ve got to do to prevent the strain is pay attention to that dog looks to be more dominant than the opposite one (that one eats 1st, gets the toys he/she needs, “stares down” another dog), and reinforce this position.
How to do this: feed the dominant dog first. Pet him/her first. Offer him/her a toy before anyone else gets one. This makes it clear to any or all dogs within the house that one very is the dominant dog – and when this hierarchy’s been recognizably established, territorial/dominant behaviors like scent marking typically vanish overnight.
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