Urinating On Tiles

[jessifer]

Our 12 month old golden retriever has suddenly started urinating on our back porch, which is tiled with tiles that seem to be porous and therefore retain the smell of the urine. We have a large backyard which she has never had trouble using in the past and she toilet trained fairly easily. This new behaviour seemed to start when there was heavy rain recently and she has kept doing it even when it is not raining. There are even times when she walks over a large patch of grass to climb up to the porch to urinate and yesterday she did three big puddles in the space of 5 minutes.

It is driving me mad, continually scrubbing the back porch and I never seem to catch her in the act so that I can discipline her at the proper moment. I have tried spraying bitter apple spray and sprinkling lavender oil on the tiles, but neither seems to have deterred her. A friend suggested Tabasco sauce, but I am afraid that this will stain the tiles. Someone else suggested citronella spray, but I am afraid that this will stop her coming up onto the back porch at all (which I don't want to do - I just want to stop her weeing on it!!).

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Sharna]

Does she wee in one particular spot on the tiles? If that's the case try putting her food dishes there. That was advice from our puppy trainer and it's really helping to stop our 12 week old Mini Foxie weeing in one particular spot of our hallway. We try to move his bowl around a bit too, popping them anywhere that he may have had an accident that day, we leave the empty dish / weater bowl there till the next feed and he seems to be getting the idea.

If you are home / around her a fair bit you couldf go back to puppy style training (ie crating / watching her like a hawk) so thast you can catch her in the act.

[sidoney]

That is along the lines of something I do to reduce dog toileting on our paved area ... I scatter dry food over it and let them hunt for it. Typically when I am about to go out ... keeps them occupied and not thinking about leaving, with the side effect that the area is seen as a food area.

First it's good to get all the smell out though. You may need to use an odour neutraliser not an odour masker.

[Odette]

I use Urine-Off on places that Odette has weed on, and ive heard that BioZet is good for removing biological odours too....

[ShellyBeggs]

This may be worth a try......if you can't catch them doing it.

my ex's 4yo bc has never been reliably house trained at night and he is staying with me for awhile and I havn't got enough crates.........when I heard of this method and gave it a go it worked.

When I got up in the morning and saw the pee on the floor.....i went berserk at the pee. Ranted at it, raved, stamped my feet, pointed at it, gestured at it and got really really angry at the pee for being there.

I never once looked at the dog, ackowledged the dog or directed anything towards him.....but make sure the dog can see and hear.......to me, it was as though the pee had crawled in from outside and got there on its own.

I put the fear of death into that pee.........and it hasn't shown up again since!!!

I don't know why it worked but it has!

Making the area a food area is a great idea to try, maybe put a dog bed there too.......so this becomes a 'home' and not a toilet.

But you really need to get rid of the smell first.....just make sure the dog doesn't see you cleaning it.

If none of it works I guess you could restrict access to this area for only when you are around to supervise.

Edited February 14, 2008 by ShellyBeggs

[ravensmyst00]

Our 12 month old golden retriever has suddenly started urinating on our back porch, which is tiled with tiles that seem to be porous and therefore retain the smell of the urine. We have a large backyard which she has never had trouble using in the past and she toilet trained fairly easily. This new behaviour seemed to start when there was heavy rain recently and she has kept doing it even when it is not raining. There are even times when she walks over a large patch of grass to climb up to the porch to urinate and yesterday she did three big puddles in the space of 5 minutes.

It is driving me mad, continually scrubbing the back porch and I never seem to catch her in the act so that I can discipline her at the proper moment. I have tried spraying bitter apple spray and sprinkling lavender oil on the tiles, but neither seems to have deterred her. A friend suggested Tabasco sauce, but I am afraid that this will stain the tiles. Someone else suggested citronella spray, but I am afraid that this will stop her coming up onto the back porch at all (which I don't want to do - I just want to stop her weeing on it!!).

Does anyone have any suggestions?

As you have said the tiles are porous and the smell is retained. You need to nutrilize the smell. Tabasco only works if the dog is licking or chewing on the item - the same with bitter apple.

Lavender only smells nice and citronella doesnt work on all dogs.

White vinegar works wonders for nutrilizing urine smells. Not sure how it will go on your tiles so patch test it where it cant be seen.

This is my recipe for cleaning up urine.

1 litre spray bottle

1 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup eucalyptus oil

30 drops lemon essential oil (make sure you get the real stuff)

shake well and let sit over night.

Top up with water and spray area liberally and wipe up.

I use it on the kitchen floor and on carpet when ever my boy had an accident and he never went back to the same spot again. Its also a great shower cleaner.

Edited as brain was going faster than my fingers.

Edited February 15, 2008 by ravensmyst00

[rugerfly]

have you excluded her having a UTI. Three puddles in five minutes is quite a bit.