There are many reasons why a dog can urinate inside the house and, sometimes, several causes coexist in the same animal, making it more difficult to understand and eliminate this unpleasant habit. As with any behavioral disorder, the first step in effectively addressing this problem will be to analyze the reason or reasons why the dog may be urinating in the house and, for this, you can always count on the help of a professional ethologist or a respectful canine educator, as well as your veterinarian.
Puppies will safely urinate indoors until they are able to control their sphincter for several hours and learn to relieve themselves in the street, an objective that you will easily achieve if you start educating them from an early age. However, if your dog is an adult and has recently started to urinate indoors, it could be a consequence of stress, emotional problems, advanced age or some pathology, among other causes. In this article on our site we offer you some tricks so that your dog does not urinate at home and we encourage you to contact a professional who works positively if the situation with your hairy does not improve.
1. Reinforce him every time he urinates in the street
One of the most basic exercises to start working on modifying this behavior is to create a positive association between urinating in the street and the arrival of a reinforcer, which can be a piece of food, a social greeting, a caress or a moment of play, depending on what your furry likes the most.
This reinforcer should be offered only when the animal urinates in a suitable place and it must be motivating for your dog, so don't worry! cut yourself and throw him a little party every time he pees in the street! This exercise will help your puppy understand where he should and shouldn't relieve himself, but it will also help if you have an adult dog with poor hygiene habits due to lack of learning.
We leave you the following article on How to teach a dog to urinate in the street? so you can have more details.
two. Increase the quality and frequency of walks
Walks with your dog should be quiet moments in which there is no rush and impatience. Think that these times are special for your furry, because they are the only times of the day when he can go out to sniff, explore and interact with the environment, something essential for his emotional well-being.
Ideally you should be able to walk through large, green areas where there are not too many stressors, such as cars, children or loud noises. In this way the dog will be able to relax more easily and relieve himself without anything interrupting him. On the other hand, keep in mind that some animals need to move a little away from their guardian to be able to urinate or defecate in peace, so a leash of at least two meters will be the most appropriate.
If your dog continues to pee in the house, consider increasing the frequency of walks so you have more opportunities to reinforce when he urinates in the street. Arrange to remove it at times when your dog is most likely to urinate, such as when he wakes up from a nap or shortly after eating or drinking water. These walks don't need to be too long, especially for puppies.
How many times do you have to walk a dog? Find out the answer below.
3. Establish a routine
Although it seems obvious, one of the best tricks so that your dog does not urinate at home is to establish a routine and anticipate it. Highly changing and unpredictable environments can affect the emotional he alth of dogs and, consequently, their behavior.
Taking your dog out for a walk at the same times every day Helps him create a routine and have a greater sense of control over his environment, which is very important to prevent certain stress and anxiety problems. Letting your dog know exactly how long it will take before he can go outside to urinate will reduce the chances that he will relieve himself at home.
Of course, keep in mind that if your dog is still a puppy he may not be able to last several hours without urinating and, therefore, he will still do so even if he has clearly established routines. You must adapt the schedules to the stage of development in which your furry is.
4. Reduces your stress level
Emotional disorders related to fear or stress, such as phobias or separation anxiety, may be the cause of let your dog urinate at home. In the specific case of separation anxiety (PSA), recurrent urination inside the home when the dog is alone or physically separated from its guardians is considered a symptom that the animal may be developing this disorder, along with other behaviors such as panting, crying, barking, stereotyping, nervousness or destructive behaviors.
Unfortunately, PSA is a common problem and is never solved by ignoring the animal or punishing it for urinating in the house. Its treatment must be adapted to the case of each individual and requires time and dedication on the part of the guardian, who must be involved and work constantly and empathetically with the dog.
If you suspect that your furry friend urinates at home as a result of stress or other emotional problems, you can try to help him by using special products such as canine appeasing pheromonesor enriching their environment with fillable toys or snacks to chew In any case, and in these cases, we always recommend contacting a canine ethologist or educator who work positively and can advise you on how to deal with your furry problem.
We leave you this other article about Separation anxiety in dogs: symptoms and treatment.
5. Clean with specific products
The areas that the animal marks with its urine take on a different smell that invites the dog (or other dogs if there are any)) to urinate in exactly the same place in the future. This is so because the pee of dogs contains pheromones that only dogs and other non-human animals are capable of detecting and the smell of these pheromones remains impregnated in the ground and in objects even if we eliminate the urine as such.
To avoid this, it is necessary to clean the areas where the dog urinates using specific products that completely eliminate the odor and therefore "erase the tracks", making it impossible even for the dog to detect it. These products are those that contain active oxygen in their compositionNeither bleach nor ammonia are effective in this case, so another trick to stop your dog from urinating at home is to use the right cleaning products.
How to eliminate the smell of dog urine? Find out the answer below.
6. Modify the value of a space
Sometimes dogs get used to urinating in a specific place in the house and only do it there, for example, in a specific room or in the corner of a specific piece of furniture. Something simple that you can try to do is to alter the value that this place has for the dog, thus making it stop being considered the "bathroom".
Dogs do not usually urinate in the same place where they eat, rest or socialize, but in more remote areas. Start spending time with your dog in the area where he usually urinates, turning it into a play space or place his bowl there, his bed or other resources of interest in order to modify the value that area has for him. You must complement this exercise with a good cleaning of the space and work to reinforce behavior in the street.
7. Never use punishments
You should know that dogs are not able to establish a causal relationship between two events that occur more than a few seconds apart. In practice, this means that if you get home and see a pee in the middle of the living room, it is totally absurd to punish your dog for it, because the animal may have urinated hours ago and will not be able to understand the reason for your anger No matter how much he lowers his ears and turns on his stomach, this 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 act won't help either, because by doing this you're not addressing the cause of the problem and, therefore, you're not solving it. Most likely in this case the dog will become scared of you and move away from you to urinate without you seeing him or begin to develop other surrogate behavior problems.
Find out the 5 common mistakes when scolding a dog and how to punish a dog? correctly in these other posts that we suggest.
8. Vet visit
If none of the tricks to prevent your dog from urinating at home work, we recommend going to the veterinary center. As in any behavioral disorder, it is necessary to rule out that the problematic behavior has appeared as a consequence of an illness or physical ailment. There are several diseases that present as one of their main symptoms polyuria (increased urine production), which can cause the dog to urinate inside the house because they cannot stand it or feel bad. Some of the most prominent are:
- Urinary Tract Infections
- Renal disease
- Canine diabetes mellitus
- Hyperadrenocorticism or Cushing's syndrome
- Pyometra
Many times these pathologies also cause polydipsia, which is defined as an increase in daily water intake. Also, if the animal is being treated for some other pathology with diuretics, this may be the cause of urination at home.
On the other hand, the age of the animal is also a factor to take into account, since very old dogs can develop urinary incontinence or the so-called cognitive dysfunction syndrome, which would be something similar to dementia in people.
