Dog weeing on rugs but nowhere else?

[elc19]

Hi everyone

My 4 year old spaniel is an absolute dream and has been fully house trained since 14/15 weeks and we never have any issues EXCEPT when we have a rug in our lounge.

We have wood flooring and I really would love a rug to bring some warmth to the room but whenever we get one, he wees on it.

I have no idea why? Our carpets upstairs have never been an issue.

Just rugs? Any ideas? I don't want to pay out for another one just to end up chucking it when it's soaked through with urine.

So bizarre and I'm at a loss as to why he feels the need to do it.

Thanks in advance x

One of our dogs does this too. So annoying . I’m wondering with our dog was she bursting to go one day, went on the rug and then kept doing it because of the scent . We got an enzyme spray on amazon and have Ben washing the rug with bio powder which totally gets rid of any smell . At a loss to why they do it though.

I have a 3 year old cocker, and this exact reason is why she took longer than a year to be completely clean in the house, and even now we've had one or two accidents, always on the living room carpet! Naturally dogs don't like to wee on hard surfaces like wooden floors and are drawn to softer absorbent things like carpets or grass.

We thought we'd cleaned up the accidents properly with a pet stain remover, but after recently going over the rug with a pet hair roller, it released the most disgusting smell of stale dog wee 🤢 So the scent was still there, encouraging her to return to the same spot.

It's so strange because she never has accidents on any of the upstairs carpets, or even in any other room. Maybe just a bad habit. I should add that this happens so rarely now, usually if she's feeling unwell. It may be the case of having to shut the lounge door when you're not in there to watch him.

Thank you both @Countryandconfused and @TeacupRex

It's very annoying and I don't want to buy yet another rug for him to ruin.

As the area between our TV (on the wall) and sofa is quite large we have a lot of space because of no TV unit and our room is just missing that little touch of warmth that a nice rug brings.

DH point blank refuses to get another because we used some Christmas vouchers last year in next to get a lovely one which ended up being thrown due to not being able to get the horrid smell out.

I just don't understand, he's an absolute dream in every other way just this one annoying habit!

My problem with closing the lounge door is that he quite often won't settle unless on the sofa in the day and only uses his bed at night when we are in and at night when we go to bed.

I may buy a cheap rug just to put down and see what happens, might try some of the sprays you can get to deter from urinating in the spot and see how we go.

He's walked off lead twice a day, has no health issues and has never been a nervous or stressed dog, no separation anxiety etc when we are not around so this is just bizarre to me.

I will try a cheap rug maybe just a small £10-£15 one in the same area and see what happens x

My spaniel is exactly the same! Rolling the rug up at night and when we went out worked but not everyone remembered so we haven’t had a rug for years.

Is the rug green? Or is it a similar texture to grass? Just an idea but is he confusing the colour and texture with the textures in the garden?

We had a dog who was clean otherwise suddenly start weeing on the new floor covering and we worked out that it was the leaf pattern made him think it was outside.

I have no idea if they work, but you can get deterant sprays to stop dogs peeing the carpet. Might be worth a try.

Maybe get a really cheap rug first and spray it to see if it works.

Mine is the same

Have a lovely rug rolled up that would make the living room look lovely but just can't put it out :(

Thank you everyone.

Rug wasn't green, it was grey and quite a deep material, almost shaggy but not quite.

I am going to buy a cheap rug and spray it with some repellent and see what happens over a couple of months, if it works I may invest in another rug.

Thanks again everyone! X

Our cat does this!

I think the synthetic rugs must have a chemical in them that smells like urine.

Cat never does it with natural material rugs, only synthetic.

I'd try a natural material like sheepskin or wool or hemp or something.

Mine does this, we had a lovely rug in the living room but had to get rid due to doggy wee smell.

Wow I never expected this to be such a common problem!

Thank you all for sharing your stories, ideas etc. X

We had this problem too. We mentioned it to our dog trainer friend who said exactly what @frostedviolets wrote. Apparently it’s really common. We found a second hand braided jute rug to test the theory, and lo and behold, no wee on the rug. We’ve since bought a pure wool rug, it wasn’t cheap so I was on edge when we first put it down, but it’s been almost 2 years now and not a single wee on this one either.

I was just about to post a thread asking the same question. My puppy 7 months old does this. I just bought a new rug which wasn't cheap and he keeps weeing on it 😕.