Question for dog behaviourists re: peeing in the house

[theadultsaretalking]

Are there any dog behaviourists out there?

We’ve got a rescue boy recently – about three years old, neutered, more or less housetrained – he’s been with us for a week. He peed in the house twice on the first day – but mainly marking the place and then we thought he stopped. He is crated at night, though.

Last night, we found out that he snuck into our bedroom at some point in the evening, where he usually doesn’t go without us and peed all over the pillows. He went on four walks and spent the day with us.

I don’t think the location is accidental, as it is really out of his way, so I am trying to figure out why he went specifically there. He is also relatively small - so jumping up on the bed is a bit of an effort.

Any insights – as I definitely don’t want to repeat the experience! Oh and ideas of how to clean the urine off bedding are useful also.

He is not totally toilet trained. He has previously been told off for weeing so went into an area where noone was, to wee where he would not be seen.

Your smell may have drawn him into the bedroom.

Carry on encouraging him outside and close the doors to the rest of the house until he is 100% weeing outside. Then you can open up other areas in the house and retrain from those rooms.

Personally I would chuck out the pillows. Wash the bedding with biological washing powder and they will be fine and no odour will be left.

Firstly, I would throw away the pillows or wash them very hot, then I would make sure he cannot go in bedroom, either by closing doors or getting a stair gate. It could just be a settling in stage, marking his place as he goes, they say 3/4 months before they fully settle in.

My dog is 6 years old, never wees indoors, but we went to a holiday home and on first day, we went to wee up a wall, luckily we stopped him just in time, but presume a previous dog had done a wee there. We thoroughly cleaned the wall and thankfully he didn’t try again.

Peeing on beds is fairly classic stress behaviour. It's not uncommon in new rescues.

Just stop him accessing those areas for now and continue to let him settle in and build confidence and it should stop as long as it doesn't become habit.

He's not fully toilet trained if he's peeing in the house - you need to restrict his access so he can't disappear out of your sight and make sure he's being taken out as often as possible to minimise any accidents.

The pillows need to be washed with biological washing powder.

It's anxiety behaviour, it takes a rescue at least 6 months to settle
Our current dog did it, always in bedrooms, stopped once we sorted the anxiety

Don't ever tell him off, restrict access to those areas, encourage lots of sniffing, long lead work on walks (releases endorphins) and hopefully it will settle

Any tips on sorting out the anxiety? He is happy at home but gets really worked up on all the walks, to the point of not accepting any treats as a reward (even the high-value ones like chicken or cheese)

That's where the slow snuffle walking comes in, throw small treats on the grass in front of him, make him sniff to find them
When our behaviourist said to stop off lead, throwing the ball etc, I thought she was bonkers!!

Our dog was the same with the not taking treats on walks ( too anxious)

It works..... I promise, we now have a much more relaxed dog

Does he need walks? If he’s getting that stressed then better to keep it low key. You can tire a dog out using training and games. Leave the walks for now or stick to boring places until he begins to decompress.

We even needed to drive to the park to do the snuffling to start with!😂

The poor lad is very very stressed. He may appear to be happy and relaxed and settling well, but he's covering up the fact that he's afraid that he's suddenly going to be whisked away to somewhere else. I think he'll stop when he starts to settle properly - it's very early days yet. Go slowly, keep him out of areas where he could pee without being seen, and take things a day at a time. He will improve as he realises that he's home now.

Play with him. As much as you can. He may not want to straight away, so play by yourself, inviting him to join in. Throw a ball, and make it look like the most exciting thing. He will join in eventually.

Don't walk him too far to begin with. Allow him to get familiar with one area and gradually expand it. As others have said, let him check all the pee mail, and nosebook.

Supervise his access to the rest of the house. Leave the crate door open for him to use as his safe space.

If you've only had him for a week I wouldn't be walking him at all, to be honest. Let him get used to you and your home before you take him outside.

Is he your 1st rescue?
It honestly can take them a long while to settle but you will get there

He is - and I can see it might be a long road.

The problem is that he is desperate to go for walks (plus the advice we had is to take him out as much as we can so that he doesn't pee inside) - he loves being outside even if it stresses him out like crazy.

Anyways - thank you, everyone, for the reassurance and the tips! Appreciate it!

Do you not have a garden he can pee in?

I would be doing a lot of bonding inside for now - it's not fair to take him out if it stresses him out (btw, dogs are like children and don't know what's good for them - so even if he asks to go out, doesn't mean you have to go along with it!).

No, sadly, no garden, but a very large flat - we are not in the UK.

Ah okay, in that case I would literally just take him to do his business then straight back home.