# Submissive peeing and jumping when meeting people



## Sanderling (Sep 21, 2008)

Our female lab/border collie cross puppy is now about 5 months old. About a month ago she started peeing when meeting people. From the bit of poking around on the net that I've done, it seems this is submissive urination, and that she's simply showing respect to the people she's meeting. 

Can we expect her to grow out of this? How long does it usually take to get over it? Is there anything we can do to help speed the process along?

She gets VERY excited when she meets someone new - just hearing the sound of someone new's voice can send her over the top. New people are her favouritest thing after food. She never pees when she's excited to see either of us (for instance, when we get home from shopping, or when we get up in the morning), but we can virtually count on it when she's meeting someone new. She also doesn't pee just on hearing their voice, only when someone acknowledges her (whether or not they are actually petting her at the time).

Part of the problem is that she doesn't meet a lot of people because we live out in the country some 40 minutes from town. If I'm going in to Petsmart I'll try to take her with me since you can take your dogs into the store, but it's a long trip for her, especially since I'm usually running other errands too that she needs to stay in the car for. We don't have many guests over because of our location, but the few that we have were coached to ignore her at first till she settles down. Generally she does, but it takes five or ten minutes, longer than most people on the street or in Petsmart are interested in hanging around and waiting for.

A related corollary is that in her excitement she'll jump all over new people. Again, she won't do it with us anymore, she'll sit and wiggle at our feet, or jump in the air away from our bodies (we only acknowledge her when she's sitting, though). But since she doesn't meet many other people, she still does it with them (our handful of guests were also coached to raise their knee when she starts jumping and not acknowledge her till she settles down, but this is hard to do when she's meeting people in Petsmart, for instance, especially since they're all animal lovers and likely to tolerate a dog jumping on them).

Is there something we can do when meeting people away from home, who we can't direct in advance to ignore her, to help correct these two behaviours? Is it simply just a matter of trying to take her in to town more often to meet more people?


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## skelaki (Nov 9, 2006)

Ignore her totally, not even looking at her for at least the first 15 minutes when you come home. Take this time to set your things down, use the bathroom, etc. Then, when the newness of your homecoming has warn off, greet her quietly, just a simple "Hi pup." But no enthusiastic greetings.

When company is expected ask the company to do the same thing, ignore and not look at her. Alternately, you can have her meet the company outside where the submissive or excitement urination won't matter as much.

If it's submissive urination it's important to ignore it and not express any displeasure even by facial expression and certainly not by any physical corrections unless you want it to get worse. If it's excitement, I'd still ignore it just keep all greetings very low key and outside when possible. She'll probably outgrow either one by the time she's a year old.


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## Sanderling (Sep 21, 2008)

Thanks for the suggestions, skelaki. Much of that we do actually currently do while we're at home. She never pees or jumps with us, even when she's excited to see us. Guests can be coached on what to do, too. We hardly ever have guests over, though.

The problem is when we take her out into the great wide world, and meet someone on the street, for instance. The nature of the encounter means waiting for her to calm down isn't really an option. However, this is the way she meets most new people, because we don't get many guests at home. How best do we work around that?


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## TooneyDogs (Aug 6, 2007)

This sounds like excitment urination which she will outgrow. In the meantime, teach her some self control by making her sit before the meet and greets. That sit will become automatic over time and prevents the jumping.


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## Sanderling (Sep 21, 2008)

Thanks, TooneyDog. She does do that for us at home, the challenge will be getting through to her in her excitement to have her sit around strangers. We'll work on it! Good to know she'll outgrow it.


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## Marsh Muppet (Nov 29, 2008)

TooneyDogs said:


> This sounds like excitment urination which she will outgrow.


Could certainly be that. Is she spayed? Spaying can result in some loss of continence. She's still very young, though, so I wouldn't worry too much. Lots of dogs do it at that age.


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