Please help - our new (to us) 11 month old pup “submissive” weeing all over the house. Will he grow out of this?

[MonsteraDeliciosa]

We got a new 11 month old golden retriever 3 days ago from a lady who could no longer care for him. He’s manic, excitable and has been through a few things. I can deal with this but the weeing! He’s toilet trained, but wees in excitement. In the house… everywhere. When he’s excited or agitated. I feel guilty that I regret I choosing him although he’s beautiful and good in other ways.

Does anyone have experience of this “submissive” weeing? Will it peter out as he calms down and settles in? Might it fade out in time?

His owner unplayed it saying he weed a little if frightened or left alone a while but he’s never alone here.

Poor pup must be a bit anxious having moved and being in a new environment and with a new family. I’d recommend toilet training from scratch eg taking outside regularly, using a command word, and rewarding when he pees outside. I also used bells by the front door to teach my dog to communicate when he wanted out!

Thanks @CannaeBelieveIt

Yes, poor pup is stressed and has lots to get used to. Thing is though, he’s well toilet trained already. As far as I have been able to find out, this type of weeing is completely involuntary.

I think I may redo the toilet training as you suggest though…. may encourage him to empty his bladder more often and be aware of it.

(Love the bells! Must be like Downton Abbey at your house!)

The first thing to ask is, have you taken him to the vet to rule out anything else - it might not be ‘anxiety’ weeing it might have a physical cause

Not yet, @ZookeeperSE , we’ve only had him 2.5 days so wanted to let him settle a bit first to see if things would change.

It's only 3 days since he left his previous home and owner, the poor dog will be feeling very stressed with new owners, new home and a new routine. It's very early days.

If he pees out of excitement when you greet him, then significantly lessen your greeting. Don't pat him or speak to him initially, walk straight to the door, open it and say something like
"Hello, Sam, do you want to go outside?"

Hopefully, he'll have a pee outside and then you can make a big fuss of him.

You also need to ask your visitors not to fuss him when they first arrive. Introduce a 5 minute rule (or whatever timeframe works for him to calm down in) during which they have to ignore him altogether. This will stop him feeling overwhelmed and lessen the excitement urination.

Also, as another pp said, I'd have the vet check him over to rule out any physical cause.

He'll settle down, he just needs a bit of time.

Keep him somewhere where weeing isn't too much of a problem until he's more settled? Kitchen, utility no where with carpets.

Good advice from @AcquadiP . You might also want to look at some puppy pads to protect carpet.
Poor thing- you'll get there!

Good thinking @HotRootsAndNaughtyToots
Puppy pads are a good idea!

Good advice, @AcquadiP I’ll get on with this approach tomorrow.

Have unusual open plan house, so shutting him in a room is impossible!

Puppy pads also a good idea.

Thanks all, I’ll report back x

I personally wouldn’t use puppy pads as they can encourage dogs to pee indoors:

Our 5yo lab was very excited about one neighbour, would pee with excitement every time he came round. He did exactly as @AcquadiP says and totally ignored him until he calmed, it soon stopped! Well until dh had surgery last year and was in hospital for 3 weeks, he was Very excited to have his dad home, understandably but hasn't happened otherwise.

Our boy actually suffered a bout of cystitis last year when dh was in hospital, the vet said it's very uncommon for males but was probably due to his high stress levels of missing dad.

My golden does this. Has done since a pup. It is better now he’s older but he still does it. I would say he is an anxious dog albeit not had bad experiences, he just worries. He’s never liked the car for example, always been worried at the vets. Doesn’t like and has to be bribed onto the scales at the vets with half a tub of treats and I still cannot guarantee success.

The excited wee had mostly stopped. My brother used to show his delight at visiting and got wee on his socks more than once. People know to taper it down now and I wouldn’t say I can even remember the last time we had an excited wee (he is nearly 4). The main wee we still get is when he’s scared. He has allergies and he’s OK in the vet’s, as in no wee, but at the minute his ears are sore and I have a steroid spray to put down each ear, it’s a spray bottle. When I did it the first day he did a little wee as he shrieked on the rug. I’ve since done them outside but I don’t think he is weeing every time. He’s a big dog and he drink a lot and always seems to have some wee in his bladder as a result.

Long ramble, sorry! I get the annoyance and it has improved for us albeit not gone completely.

Thank you all, your comments and own experiences are all very helpful.

It’s good to know there’s hope!
I don’t mind the odd wee, but we have loads at the moment!

Sorry to hear the bearer of bad news, but I really don’t think well adjusted golden retrievers are urinating indoors at 11 months. I do a lot of rescuing of them, and I’ve only seen instances like you’re describing when the dog has been seriously abused. I’d be very concerned about other behaviour.

The owner has already lied to you once about how much he wees. There’s going to be more skeletons in the closest, OP.

Shitty original owner not to rehome through the local breed club who could have absolutely had knowledgable owners fix this (and made sure no local breeder ever sold a dog to the original owner again!!!). That’s the only reason many of these people don’t go to breed specific rescues

How would you go about fixing it @TheHungryHungryLandsharks ?

Training can go right out of the window during stressful times in a dogs life. Particularly a young dog. Please give him time. The poor thing has had his whole world turned upside down and the people he loved and trusted have gone out of his life. Think about it from his point of view.

My toilet trained rescue dog used to pee herself in overwhelm. It gradually stopped as she found her feet.

Apologies, @21ZIGGY I did actually press send too soon as I got distracted by my own dogs.

Ultimately, the only way OP will fix it is by consistent training, understanding the breed mentally (golden retrievers thrive on positive reinforcement) not yelling and not silent anger either - they are emotionally very intelligent and do pick up on people being annoyed, even if it's not vocalised - and time. It might never completely improve though, depending on the level of abuse and neglect the dog has gone through (and clearly the owner is less than honest so I wouldn't trust what they said with a barge pole). I also wouldn't use puppy pads and would go back to the beginning - outside every 30minutes, praising when he toilets outside etc.

I would say OP should be speaking to the owner to find out just what else they lied about to try and understand the bigger picture, but given their dishonesty in this and that they've raised a dog so clearly not robust enough to cope I wouldn't trust them to be honest about anything. Disgraceful behaviour from them.

Golden Retrievers should never be shy or timid and definitely not submissively urinating at that age. Yes, re-homing is stressful...but Golden Retrievers are incredibly robust dogs (when raised correctly) and this shouldn't be happening unless there is some other, significant, trigger (such as abuse, child torment, neglect etc).

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks

This is a sobering read.
I do believe his owner loved him, but as well as certain aspects of training being missing or ineptly done (like waiting, not jumping up) her relationship broke down and so she was left with puppy, children and full time job alone.
She said he was alone (in one room) for 8-9 hours per day so realised she had to rehome. She did gave 2 boys so yes, maybe he was tormented somewhat. Perhaps there is more metal damage than she’s let on…

He’s jumpy and barks/growls unexpectedly, but both of these have already improved: we keep everything calm, reward etc. He’s affectionate and is surprisingly good on walks, with good recall.

Also, apart from excitement wees, I think basic toilet training was not up to much. We had a full massive wee and poo on the floor this morning, though I appreciate he’s a newly rehomed pup

We’re not experts at all. Our last golden was our first dog. He had his moments but was quite trainable, and became a wonderful calm dog. So we have experience of one pup. 😞

I do agree @TheHungryHungryLandsharks however I would not be in total dispair

I have fostered for years many breeds and the difference in the dogs when they are treated correctly and new owners understand the dogs makes huge diference to their behaviour.

I have had bite risks, weeing, distruction, howling etc in all breeds and when given time they have setted into their new homes very well.

Keep your golides world a bit small for the moment. Dont introduce them to loads of new people. Keep them in an area that is easy to clean.DO NOT use puppy pads. They have a smelll impregnatated onto them to encourage weeing. You do not want to encourage the weeing!

Keep greeting calm and totally ignore any emotional weeing. Praise outside weeing every single time. Give it time.

The dog does need a vet check. In you mind plan this to be a llong term issue rather than put stress on yourself and the dog to stop it quickly. It probaby wont be a long term issue if not physical reason for it.

Look for the triggers, which you aready know eg greetings and being left aone. Do what you are doing calm greetings or just ignore him. Expect him to be calm. If he can not be cam pop him out of the way.

Graduall increase time on his own. Initially dont leave him on his own so he can relax in his new environment.

Treat him like a traumatised rescue dog. Keep him in a small enclosed area, with a covered crate. Put puppy pads around it. Take him outside after meals. Just spend time near him but wait for him to come to you.

Tke everything the previous owner says with a very large pinch of salt.

Is it excitable/nervous weeing or submissive weeing? We’ve had rescues with both.
With the submissive weeing she would squat and pee as people bent down to pet her. She’d often rush up to them wagging, so people had no idea she was nervous, she seemed so happy. We used to ask people to not pay her any attention initially until she was in the garden. She did the submission squatting pee most of her life, but doing the first introduction outside definitely helped.
The dog who peed constantly out of nerves came from a domestic abuse household. His previous family thought he had a possible bladder issue and it was being investigated at the vets. But within a week of his being with us it completely stopped. He only did it once more five years later when I was upset about my dad being in end of life care and I was crying a lot. I think he was possibly worrying about me like he must have worried about his previous family when they were going through hard times. 😢
I would just try to keep his environment (your house) as calm as possible and hopefully he will relax and it will stop naturally.

Is it excitable/nervous weeing or submissive weeing? We’ve had rescues with both

You know what? After reading up and learning about this I’d have to say it was both. With a bit of poor toilet training mixed in.

There was squatting to wee when greeting or playing, but also involuntarily excitable/nervous weeing.

So today, massive wee and poo on floor first thing. Fine, puppy in new home.
Then after a long walk today (on which he was brilliant) he was asking for love, but after just a VERY little rub, fountained everywhere. But denying love surely wont help him relax?

The squatting, submissive weeing is very occasional, but the excitement weeing huge and frequent.

@MonsteraDeliciosa I should have guessed there would be children involved! Perhaps unfairly, but I’d work on the assumption there definitely was some torment. Poor bugger

For what it’s worth, he’s still very young (mentally not mature - as you probably know they don’t mentally mature until 24/36 months) which means this is all solvable with patience, time and a good working knowledge (or a gundog trainer/behaviourist) of how to manage the breed. It’s just a matter of sticking with him and focussing on the immediate issues first - too many people go into rescuing trying to fix every issue all at once. Prioritise the issues that cause you the most stress or you think are the most easily fixable (like toilet training) and work on the rest once that’s done. I’m not saying ignore those issues, but he’s very young still so he will get overstimulated and manic (particularly once he realises how good he has it) and it’s easier on you if you only focus on a few things rather than going all in.

As you’ve had the breed before, you’ll know what I mean when I mentioned their sensitivity. People always say they’re like labs, but really they’re nothing like them. Sensitive but robust is the best way to describe them. You’ve had some great advice on this thread re. house training.

My mum adopted a cocker spaniel rescue about 8/9 years ago now. She was a wreck (absolutely everything that she could have wrong with her, she did). But the relationship she has with my mum is like nothing I’ve ever seen. When a dog has suffered, once they get the right home and see what life can be like…there’s nothing like it. They just need time, space and to know they’re safe.

Thanks so much, yet again @TheHungryHungryLandsharks and to everyone for taking the time to advise.

Yes goldies, despite their intelligence, are irksomely immature until 2ish. And this pup is clearly intelligent, so that along with his youth means there’s hope; as long as he’s not been too traumatised before.

My house set up makes it difficult to contain him in a small area, but he is staying where the floors are easily cleanable. We’ve taken the posh rugs out of the lounge! He loves being in the hallway (which is open to the lounge) or outside on the doorstep. He has it good here: long countryside and beach walks, big walled garden and constant company.

I hadn’t wanted this though: it wasn’t the plan to take on and fix a damaged pup. We’re not any sort of experts. Wanted a good (mostly) trained pup and an easy life!

Unfortunately this is the problem with private rehoming - you’re relying on the previous owner to be totally honest and they very rarely are.