Dog Peeing When Excited

[Mollyrulz]

My 17 mths old, maltese x poodle which I adopted from Petrescue.com is a lovely dog but highly excitable!! After been with us for 1 month, she recently started to "pee" when people come to our house cos she is sooo excited. She did it inside my house even though she has never had an accident when she has been in the house - I only introduced her inside the house after 2 weeks as I was not sure whether she was toilet trained!!

She jumps up on friends when they visit even though I say, "no" and that's when she does her little 'accident"... after 5-10 mins, she usually calms down and sits really nicely! I only noticed cos she only started last weekend - prior to that, even though she was excited, she didn't pee but she would jump on people and try to lick them, etc, etc.

My question is IS THIS NORMAL - peeing when excited?? ... I know now to keep her outside when I have visitors (and she even did it yesterday when someone came AND she was outside) and in future, to tell friends NOT to say hello to her until she calms down.

As a rule, I don't go out & greet her straight away when I come home from work as she is too excited then - she has learnt that I only come to her when she has calmed down AND is sitting waiting for me..

BUT I don't know how to get her to control herself when other people visit - like I said, yesterday she was outside and the visitor was inside and she still lost control cos she was excited!!

Any suggestions???

[Erny]

Being excited is habit forming. She's learnt there is a reason to be excited. Now she needs to learn there's a reason to not be excited - and to do that you make all visitations boring. Don't expect this to occur the first time or two you have visitors in. She'll learn through patterns .... ie that every time someone comes, there's nothing in it for her. You're doing the right thing by beginning to have your visitors ignore her - and of course that means don't speak, touch OR make eye contact with her. As you can imagine, over time this would become boring.

Start with her outside. When she learns to settle and stay settled for a duration, start bringing her in (only after everyone - including herself, has settled down) and have her on lead. The "ignore" rule should still apply. Although you'll have her on lead, don't make a big fuss about bringing her in.

Crate training her can be a bonus with this sort of exercise, because the intermediatary step could be to then bring her inside and allow her in her crate. This gives everyone the opportunity to relax, chat and easily ignore her.

Even for the first number of visits (the ones where she's progressed to being okish in the back yard and you are beginning to bring her in after everyone's been there for a while), even when she's not being excited, I'd continue to have everyone ignore her. Train her that she can expect to be ignored (rather than her present expectations, which is one of joyful entertainment). When she's better at that you can carefully (without going over the top) allow people to give her a small, non-eventful pat PROVIDED she's been quiet/calm for a good while and certainly not until the visitors have been there and settled in for a good while.

As to how long you do what for is up to you to judge. But one of the mistakes most of us humans make is trying to reach our desired goal far too quickly - so inevitably we rush the dog and have our own expectations set too high for their capability.

[Mollyrulz]

Thanks Erny.I don't have a crate but she has an "inside" doggie bed which she knows to sit in there when she comes in. I only let her into the house in the weekend after I bath her as we all work during the week and my kids are at Uni and also work part-time. She knows to go straight to that bed after her bath and sit there without being told.

Will that bed serve as a crate?

Why do you recommend a lead when inside - is that to "control" her ie pull her back when she jumps on people?

[Erny]

Will that bed serve as a crate?

Why do you recommend a lead when inside - is that to "control" her ... ?

Yes - it is to help you control her. And it's not about "pulling her back when she jumps on people", it's about preventing the behaviour in the first place.

The bed won't serve as a crate will as it does not contain her and leaves her free to dance around and perpetuate her excitement.

[chloebear]

I have the opposite, my puppy pee's when nervious.

[Erny]

I have the opposite, my puppy pee's when nervious.

There are very close similarities in treatment though, Chloebear.

[Mollyrulz]

Will that bed serve as a crate?

Why do you recommend a lead when inside - is that to "control" her ... ?

Yes - it is to help you control her. And it's not about "pulling her back when she jumps on people", it's about preventing the behaviour in the first place.

The bed won't serve as a crate will as it does not contain her and leaves her free to dance around and perpetuate her excitement.

[kamuzz]

My dog pees when she is nervous

e.g they are not officially allowed upstairs but sometimes Jatz will jump the baby gates and come up for a visit. As soon as she sees us, she pees even before we have said anything to her.

Any ideas on this one? She also pees when she goes back to see her breeder, but not with any other visitors so far.