Urinating With Fear!

[Luke GSP]

I have two GSP's one male who is 18 mths old and a female 9 mts old. He is fine and typical playful full on GSP with no real issues other than natural excuberance, She on the other hand is really nervous all the time and keeps approaching anyone other than me in a mega submissive stoop and quite often pees (not a full wee but about the size of a 20 cent piece) This is even when the person she is approaching is sitting on the floor watching television and hence not taking any notice of her in any way shape or form and certainly not at all threatening! She is also very nervous at the dog park and will not play with most dogs but will resume normal play once she is alone with Monte our male.

She has also started peeing in her crate on a fairly regular basis ie 1 to 2 times a week. We have thoroughly washed out the crate and used an odour neutraliser, but it still continues to happen.

[rugerfly]

My GSP Bitch is still a bit of a submissive pee'er at nearly 8 years old. She did it moreso as a youngster. Dont worry too much about it. As for the peeing in the crate, just make sure she doesnt have a UTI as they can suffer from it quite a bit consistantly when they are young. The UTI can last for a while so best to perhaps keep an eye on how much she pees outside also.

Your girl is just being cautious about how she approaches other people, as she would in a pack situation. She may have been the submissive pup. Tell your friends to ignore her behaviour and reward her when she is calm. She will eventually grow out of this crawling around business.

Come in to the GSP breed thread and post her photos!!!

[Cosmolo]

I disagree with rugerfly- many dogs do not grow out ofit as they believe that the behaviour is what keeps them safe. Does she go to training at all?

[Sarah L]

I have two GSP's one male who is 18 mths old and a female 9 mts old. He is fine and typical playful full on GSP with no real issues other than natural excuberance, She on the other hand is really nervous all the time and keeps approaching anyone other than me in a mega submissive stoop and quite often pees (not a full wee but about the size of a 20 cent piece) This is even when the person she is approaching is sitting on the floor watching television and hence not taking any notice of her in any way shape or form and certainly not at all threatening! She is also very nervous at the dog park and will not play with most dogs but will resume normal play once she is alone with Monte our male.

Have you had her since she was a young pup? If so when did this start to happen? Has she had any major scares that made her bolt and run? Is she desexed or not? either way also good idea to get a check up on her health just to make sure. There are some very good confidence building exercises that can be tried to help her. Can we have some more info on all the occasions when she does this. It would help with what exercises to give you and when to do them.

She has also started peeing in her crate on a fairly regular basis ie 1 to 2 times a week. We have thoroughly washed out the crate and used an odour neutraliser, but it still continues to happen.(

When did she start this? Has the crate ever been used as a punishment? To clean the crate with you can try Bio-Zet washing powder, make a weak soluition up in a spray bottle, spray and leave it to dry, then wipe down with a damp cloth. Make sure you spray the wire as well not just the floor. This washing powder contains an amonia neutraliser.

I hope you don't mind all the questions but it will give a clearer picture into why it may of happend and how to go about trying to help her get over it.

[Luke GSP]

I disagree with rugerfly- many dogs do not grow out ofit as they believe that the behaviour is what keeps them safe. Does she go to training at all?

Cosmolo,

She has done some obedience training and can do all the usual ie sit, stay, lay down and come to either verbal or hand signals. I have not tried to whistle train her as yet. We have been very careful to carry out and maintain Amichien (spelling?) bonding and display strong assertive positive dominance. She is fine with me. We have had a fair bit of progress in the last 48 hours making sure to totally diregard her unless she is displying a calm submissive attitude and that seems to be building her confidence so unless someone has some other sugestions we will probably continue with that for the moment.

As far as the crate goes we have changed her crate over from a wire one to an enclosed flight type and this seems to have cured the problem. I would assume she feels more secure as she is now enclosed.