There are many reasons why a dog can urinate indoors, and sometimes, several reasons exist in the same animal, making this unpleasant habit difficult to understand and eliminate. As with any behavioral disorder, the first step to effectively dealing with this problem would be to analyze the reason or reasons why your dog may be peeing in the home, and for this, you can always count on the help of a professional behaviorist or a respected dog breeder, as well as your vet.
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| prevent dog urinating |
Puppies will urinate safely indoors until they can control their sphincter for several hours and learn to pee on the street, a goal that you will easily achieve if you start teaching them from an early age.
However, if your dog is an adult and has recently started urinating indoors, it could be as a result of stress, emotional issues, getting old, or some illnesses, among other causes.
In this ksetliv.com article we give you some tips so that your dog does not urinate in the house and we encourage you to contact a specialist who will act positively if the situation with your dog does not improve.
1- Lead him every time he pees in the street
One of the simplest exercises to start working on modifying this behavior is to create a positive association between the act of urinating in the street and the arrival of the reinforcer, which could be a piece of food, a social greeting, or foreplay. Play moment, depending on what your dog likes the most.
You should only offer this booster when the animal urinates in a suitable place and it should be a motivator for your dog, so don't be shy and throw him a little party every time he pees on the street!
This exercise will help your puppy understand where he should and should not pee, but it will also help you if you have an adult dog with poor health habits due to a lack of education.
2- Increase the quality and pace of walking
Walking your dog should be quiet moments that do not have to be impulsive and impatient. Think these are special times for your pet, as they are the only times of the day when he can go out to smell, explore and interact with the environment, which is essential to his emotional well-being.
The ideal situation is to be able to walk through large, green areas where there are not many stressors, such as cars, children or loud noises. This way the dog will be able to relax more easily and relieve himself without being interrupted by anything.
On the other hand, keep in mind that some animals need a little distance from their guardian to be able to urinate or defecate peacefully, so a leash of at least two meters will be most appropriate.
If your dog continues to urinate indoors, consider increasing the number of walks so that you have more opportunities to reinforce when he urinates outside. Arrange to remove it at times when your dog is most likely to urinate, such as when he wakes up from a nap or soon after eating or drinking water. These outings don't have to be very long, especially for puppies.
3- Create a routine
Although it sounds obvious, one of the best tricks to keeping your dog from peeing in the house is to establish and expect a routine.
Highly changing and unpredictable environments can affect a dog's emotional health, and thus their behaviour.
Taking your dog for a walk at the same times each day helps him establish a routine and have a greater perception of controlling his environment, which is very important to prevent some stress and anxiety issues.
Letting your dog know how much time is left before he can urinate outside will reduce the chances of him pooping in the house.
Thus, he will do so even if he has clear established procedures. You must adapt the timelines for the stage of development in which your fur is.
Of course, keep in mind that if your dog is still a puppy, he may not have the ability to endure several hours without urinating.
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4- Reduce your stress level
Emotional disturbances related to fear or stress, such as phobias or separation anxiety, can be a reason for your dog to urinate in the house. In the specific case of separation anxiety (PSA), frequent urination indoors when the dog is alone or physically separated from its parents is a symptom that the animal may have with this disorder, along with other behaviors such as panting, crying, barking, stereotypes, nervousness, or behaviors devastating.
Unfortunately, APS is a common problem and is never solved by ignoring the animal or punishing it for peeing in the house. Its treatment must be tailored to each individual's situation and requires time and dedication on the part of the guardian who must be involved and work consistently with the dog with compassion.
If you suspect that your furry friend is peeing at home as a result of stress or other emotional issues, you can try to help him by using special products such as dogs that satisfy pheromones or enrich his environment with refillable toys or chewing snacks. In any case, and in these cases, we always recommend that you contact a dog behaviorist or a breeder who works positively and can advise you on how to treat your furry problem.
5- Cleaning with specific products
The areas marked by the animal's urine develop a different odor that invites the dog (or other dogs if present) to urinate in the exact same place in the future. This is because dog urine contains pheromones that dogs and other non-human animals can detect and the smell of these pheromones remains imbued in the ground and in things even if we remove the urine in this way.
To avoid this, it is necessary to clean the areas where the dog urinates with certain products that completely eliminate the smell and thereby “wipe the traces”, making it impossible for even the dog to detect it. These products are those that contain active oxygen in their formula. Neither bleach nor ammonia is effective in this case, so another trick to prevent your dog from urinating in the house is to use the appropriate cleaning products.
6- Modify the place value
Sometimes dogs get used to urinating in a certain place in the house and only do it there, for example, in a certain room or in the corner of a certain piece of furniture. A simple thing you can try to do is change the value this place has to the dog, causing it to stop being considered a 'bathroom'.
Dogs do not usually urinate in the same place where they eat, rest, or socialize, but in more secluded areas. Start by spending time with your dog in the area where he usually pees, and turn it into a play area or put his feeder, bed, or other resources of interest there to modify the value that area has to him. This exercise should be supplemented with a good cleaning of the space and work to reinforce behavior on the street.
7- Never use punishment
You should know that dogs are unable to establish a causal relationship between two events that occur at an interval of more than a few seconds.
Practically speaking, this means that if you get home and see pee in the middle of the living room, it is completely absurd to punish your dog for it, because the animal may have peed hours ago and won't be able to understand why you're angry.
No matter how much he lowers his ears and rolls on his stomach, it doesn't mean he's sorry, he's just trying to calm down.
On the other hand, yelling or scolding the dog if you catch him in the middle of the action also won't help, because you are not addressing the cause of the problem, and therefore you are not solving it. In this case, it is more likely that the dog is afraid of you and turns away from you to urinate without seeing it, or that it is starting to develop other alternative behavior problems.
8- Visit the vet
If there are no tricks to prevent your dog from urinating in the house, we recommend going to the vet. As in any behavioral disorder, it is necessary to rule out the emergence of problematic behavior as a consequence of illness or physical impairment.
There are many diseases that show as one of their main symptoms frequent urination (increased urine production), which can make a dog urinate indoors because he can't stand it or feels bad. Notable among them are:
- Urinary tract infections
- Kidney disease
- canine diabetes
- hyperadrenocorticism or Cushing's syndrome
Often, these diseases also cause polydipsia, which is defined as an increase in daily water intake. Also, if the animal is treated for some other disease with diuretics, this may be the reason for urination in the house.
On the other hand, the age of the animal is also a factor to consider, as very old dogs can develop enuresis or the so-called cognitive dysfunction syndrome, which would be something similar to dementia in humans.