It's an instinctual, physical response called submissive urination, and it's normal in young dogs. Submissive urination typically happens whenever a dog feels excited, shy, anxious, or scared. It also happens when a dog wants to acknowledge another's dominance — like recognizing you as their owner.
Submissive urination is a behavior in which a dog pees as a response to fear or anxiety. It can be more common in young puppies who are gaining confidence, but can also occur in adult dogs.
Why Does My Dog Pee When Excited? Excitement peeing is most often found in happy, hyper, young dogs that may not have full bladder control. Dogs frequently outgrow this form of peeing as they mature and emotionally calm down.
Note: Puppies become more confident as they grow older. Most puppies outgrow submissive urination before one year of age. Unfortunately, some owners inadvertently encourage the behavior by coddling their nervous youngster.
Urination accompanied by submissive behavior is known as submissive urination. The underlying cause of submissive urination is fear. A number of triggers such as a person approaching, punishment, scolding, and a deep and loud voice can cause dogs of any age to urinate submissively.
Most puppies who have submissive urination tend to grow out of it by seven or eight months, although some continue to do it until about a year of age. If punished for urine leaks, however, he may become more anxious and less confident and then will continue leaking when stressed.
The dog may also roll over on its side or show its belly when greeting an unfamiliar person. Your puppy is likely to grow out of submissive urination by the time they reach one year of age, even if you do nothing about it.
When your dog urinates submissively, do not punish him or her or express frustration. Either ignore the behavior and walk away or calmly take your dog outside and reward him or her for urinating outdoors. Avoid aggressive or dominant gestures.
You can train away submissive peeing by doing the following: Ignore the behavior. When your dog submissively pees, pretend that it didn't happen for a few minutes. Scolding or praising at this point will only reinforce your dog's belief that he needs to submit to you by peeing.
Sometimes dogs use urine to mark objects, including your bed. Studies have shown dogs don't mark to claim territory, it's more like graffiti that says, “I was here.” So, they aren't telling you the bed belongs to them but are more likely adding their scent to a communal space.
It's an instinctual, physical response called submissive urination, and it's normal in young dogs. Submissive urination typically happens whenever a dog feels excited, shy, anxious, or scared.
Dogs often show affection by licking. It's an instinctive behaviour that's linked to the comfort they felt when their mother licked them as a puppy. Licking plays an important part of how they bond with others, causing them to release dopamine and endorphins that help make them feel relaxed, calm and happy.
“Licking can be a sign of affection,” explains Burch. “It might also give a dog a feeling of security and comfort, just as the dog had when licked by its mother in the litter.”
Spaying or neutering your dog should reduce urine-marking and may stop it altogether. But if they have been marking for a long time, a pattern may already be established. Because it has become a learned behavior, spaying or neutering alone won't solve the problem.
Submissive Urination in Dogs. This behavior is more common in young dogs than older ones and in more females than males, and it appears more frequently in certain breeds, including Cocker Spaniels, Golden Retrievers, and Dachshunds – but can occur in any dog.
Basically, if you time yourself peeing (over a period of time, not just one sitting) and find that you take significantly longer or shorter than 21 seconds, it can indicate that you are holding it in for too long, or not enough.
Yelling at your dog can make your dog nervous and fearful. Yelling also can make your dog less likely to respond to your commands, which makes you more frustrated and likely to yell.
Loud voices and anger also cause dogs to urinate submissively; hence they should be avoided at all costs. Asking your friends and family to greet your dog in a much softer way, such as bending down all the way to pet your dog from the side, is much better rather than leaning over and petting it from the front.
In my experience, there are usually two possible reasons for this behavior. The first is that the dog asks, but the person doesn't notice, misreads the communication or doesn't act quickly enough. The second may be that the dog has unintentionally been allowed to have accidents in the house.
The first thing to do when a previously house trained dog begins urinating or defecating inside is to rule out any medical problems. Urinary tract infections, cystitis (bladder inflammation), bladder stones, kidney disease, or arthritis or age-related incontinence could all be causes of house soiling in dogs.
Your scent is familiar, so your dog knows instinctively that any place you've been must be familiar and safe, too. It's the same reason why dogs are keen to sleep in our beds, ride in our cars, and lounge on our furniture and in our laps.
Territorial marking
As you probably know, dogs urinate instinctively to mark their territory. This is different from submissive peeing because it does not necessarily reflect a lack of confidence. Often, dogs feel the need to protect their domain. This often occurs when your dog feels challenged at home.