# Female Dog Dominance Urinating



## AustinExHorn

My girlfriend lives with her 12 year old daughter and has a 1 1/2 year old, spayed, female maltese. She treats the dog like a princess and, in my opinion, the dog thinks it is the top female in their house. Even though the dog is house trained, on occasion the dog would urinate on the daughter's bed - I presume in a dominance display. The dog is no longer allowed in the daughter's room.

Now that I am in the picture, the dog will urinate on the couch, floor, and even my girlfriend's lap when I am around. The dog LOVES me and follows me around, climbs on my lap and is definitely not scared of me so it is not submissive peeing.

I suspect the urinating has something to do with hierarchy in the house and I think she is urinating on/near my girlfriend to show she (the dog) is the top female in the house. This ONLY happens when I am around and the dog is perfectly behaved when I am not there.

My question is, what exactly are we dealing with and how do we stop this disgusting habit?


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## tonisaysss

it's not a dominance issue. it's more than likely a UTI.

dogs instinctively do not eliminate where they sleep, especially beds. some may have accidents, sure, but continuous happenings would lead me to believe that it's more of a health concern than anything.


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## qingcong

I don't know about the whole dominance thing. Dominance is a very fluid, indefinite, and broad concept and doesn't really have much application when it comes to dog training. It's very questionable whether dogs pee on things to send a message to humans.

Dogs do pee on things as a means of claiming possession and territory, so if that is what you mean by dominance, then I would agree. In addition to that, there is excitement and submission pee. What is the scenario in which the dog pees on your girlfriend's lap? Are you reaching in to pet her or make contact with her before she drips? Doing so can trigger either excitement or submission pee and in my own experience, sometimes there is not much of a difference between excitement and submission pee.

You say "Even though the dog is house trained, on occasion the dog would urinate on the daughter's bed". But if the dog is still peeing inside the house, then she is not house trained, at least not with you in the house. One thing to try is for everybody in the house to completely ignore her for 30 minutes when someone comes home. Don't say a word, don't pet her, and don't even look at her. Doing this should take care of the problem if the problem is excitement or submission pee. If she is peeing to mark, then you guys need to go back to basic potty training 101.


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## AustinExHorn

Thank you for the replies.

As far as a UTI, the dog is not urinating in her own bed she is urinating in another persons bed. We initially thought she may be sick so we took her to the vet and she checked out fine. She has a dog door and uses it. Also, she can stay in the house for long periods of time without an accident so I don't think it is health related.

I tend to think the dog is sending some type of message. I understand dominance (I define it as being the 'leader' of the pack or at least higher in the pecking order) is fluid, but have to disagree with you and suggest it definately has a place in dog training in my experience. I have a male labrador I trained to the AKC Senior Hunter level and competition for dominance reared it head on many occasions. He will actually walk over and urinate where I do if we are taking a break and I have to take a call from nature. Plus, I have seen it with others in the retriever club in the past several years.

The dog in question is house trained and by 'house trained' I mean the dog knows NOT to go potty in the house but for some reason chooses to do otherwise when I am around. I thought of submissive peeing, but I can recognize that behavior (my nieces dog does it when you lean over to pick it up) This dog is intentionally urinating at times. I have even seen her kind of 'hike' her leg when doing it like she is marking territory. And ONLY when I am around according to my girlfriend.

Again, I appreciate your replies and don't mean to be dismissive. I have just never experienced this before and I have spent a lot of time around dogs.

The suggestion about ignoring her for 30 minutes upon arrival is a good one. I was talking to my girlfriend about that before I posted on here so I think we will try that and see where it gets us. If that doesn't work, I may hire a local trainer to come to the house and observe the dynamic to see if we can find a solution.

Thank you again.


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## TooneyDogs

http://www.webtrail.com/petbehavior/sept98.html

You might find this article from 1998 interesting. This is called Social Marking and is fairly common in households where relationships undergo stress or change.


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## clickntreat

Dogs pee in people's bed to mark their dominance. That is not bs. So, you are correct. Ignoring would be a good thing to try if it is excitement, but remember a dog can like you and still feel it is dominant to you. She may be marking your girlfriend to claim her. Start on a program to assert your dominance. No petting, feeding, going out, without first sitting/downing. Do no let her go through doorways or stairwells before you. I would personally kick her off of furniture until she has an attitude adjustment. DEFINITELY no carrying around like a stuffed animal. Be unwavering with your rules, have confidence in yourself and your leadership, and things will turn around. I hope she has a crate I would put her on a schedule like during potty training. That way she is not offered the chance to mark. Make sure to clean up any soiled areas well and with enzymatic cleaners. Only enzymatic ones get the smell out for the dog.


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## GypsyJazmine

You might want to read this & forget about the whole dominance theory.
http://dogpublic.com/articles/article.aspx?sid=14&pid=1640


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## qingcong

Congrats on the training accomplishments, that's cool. I'm sure that in the course of training dogs you've encountered situations where the dog will perform perfectly in one scenario and then act like she's completely forgotten everything in another place. A lot of people humanize this and say, "She KNOWS how to do it, she's just being stubborn" or "She's trying to show me who's boss". The truth is, the dog simply needs to be retrained in the new situation, it's that simple. I think the same concept applies to potty training your girlfriend's dog. You guys probably need to retrain her when new people are around.

The problem with diagnosing things as dominance is that it doesn't offer much help in actually fixing the problem. Even if the problem is a truly bonafide dominance issue in which the dog is making status related gestures, what does that mean we should do? Flex our muscles and beat our chest at the dog to show who's stronger? Flip her on her back? Describing the dog as dominant creates an adversarial relationship in which the dog is looked upon as our enemy, as if she is spending her waking hours trying to figure out how to take over the house. 

I think what happens more often than not is that the owner unintentionally empowers and puts the dog in the dominant position. Humans spoil and give the dog everything she wants, and so by virtue of this, one can say that the dog has some sort of dominance. A truly dominant, status seeking dog is rare. If your girlfriend's dog is marking territory, I would say that she should not be allowed on the bed and on your girlfriend's lap. Being high up is a clear sign of status to canines and can trigger possessive behavior.


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## KBLover

qingcong said:


> The truth is, the dog simply needs to be retrained in the new situation, it's that simple. I think the same concept applies to potty training your girlfriend's dog. You guys probably need to retrain her when new people are around.


Wally was the same way - he was potty trained, but yet I caught him peeing/marking in the house. He had to learn that the same rules applied to this home as it did his prior one. 

As far as being high up - well if that's the case, every time I tell Wally to wait at the top of the stairs, I'm giving up dominance because he's higher up than me. Somehow, I just can't make sense of that.


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