Do Puppies 'mark' ?

[kymbo]

I have a male papillon puppy now 6 months old, and a friend has a female puppy that is 6 weeks younger. She brings her over for play dates :D The last two times she has bought her over, the female puppy is agressive towards my male, and either mounts him or pins him to the floor, and continually snarls and growls. She has done this to some extent from the first time she came over at 14 weeks old, but it is getting worse. This settles down after a while, and they play all the time. At no time does the male pup snap or growl or try to dominate; he just wants to play...even when he is pinned down, he jumps up and immediately instigates play. But what is happening now is the female puppy is peeing all the time. Dribble dribble dribble, and I think it is on places where frodo had mishaps when he was being toilet trained. I noticed today when she was outside, that she did little pees all over the place; first sniffing. I counted 7 pees in about 2 minutes. She just went to the vet the other day, and definately hasn't got an infection or anything. She doesn't do it at home at all apparently, and there are 3 other dogs there. Frodo tonight sniffed where I had cleaned up this afternoon from her little pee, and went to squat on it ...tho he got a rude shock when I yelled. He hasn't tried it again; but I just don't want him going backwards in his house training.

When I see her do it, I make a loud noise, and scoop her up and put her outside, but its not like she actually NEEDS to go, iykwim.

It reminds me of when male dogs mark over other males pees....Do females do this too? It is driving me spare! How can I stop this?

thanks

kym

[Miranda]

Yes females mark, this girl sounds like quite a dominant character and dominant bitches tend to mark even more. She's marking because your yard is a strange environment, she won't do it at home because it's her territory and the other dogs form part of her pack. Some bitches will even lift their legs, this certainly isn't behaviour exclusive to males. It is also normal for your dog to cover her marks. If I bring a new dog into my yard my dogs will go out afterwards and urinate wherever the strange dog has been and if I take any of my dogs into a strange yard where there are dogs they will also urinate everywhere.

If the bitch is entire there's also a chance that she's approaching sexual maturity and this can exacerbate these types of behaviour. I don't know what you can do to stop it, all my dogs are entire and they all do it so I guess I really don't notice it, to me it's just routine normal behaviour.

[kymbo]

Thanks for the info...looks like I can't do too much about it except keep them outside when she comes to play.

Thanks again

kym

[Livi]

Wow she is going to be a handful when she grows up, bossy little thing isn't she !! :D

I've seen older bitches do that, and also that chook scratching thing with their back feet afterwards mine used to do it at the offlead area cos she could smell the other dogs that had been there.

I think you will have to keep them outside, or at least don't give her the run of the house and keep her confined where you can keep an eye on her (and is easy to clean up) if outside all the time doesn't suit.