Help! My dog wee’s when he meets new people

Dear Jennifer,

Please could you help my mum and I with an issue I have. When I meet new people or are confronted by other dogs, I often wee. This makes my mum annoyed and she scolds me which makes things worse because I will then wee even more. Please can you help us 🙁

Love, Moby

Hi Moby,

Oh dear, I guess this is quite embarrassing for you and makes mum annoyed because she has to clean up all the time 🙂

Well your situation is not as bad a dilemma as you might think. I strongly suspect you are experiencing submissive urination which is a relatively common phenomenon among dogs, particularly at puppy stage. Most puppies grow out of it by the age of 12 months but in can continue within an adult dog, mainly with dogs that lack confidence or who may have been abused as puppies.

Submissive urination is a form of communication and dogs quite often do it as a display of social appeasement i.e. the dog is trying to indicate that he is not a threat of any kind. Over excitement or a feeling of intimidation can also trigger the behaviour. Often other body language postures such as cowering, licking lips, tail tucked between legs, flattened ears etc. will accompany the submissive urination.

As usual the first thing mum must do is have you checked by your veterinarian to make sure there are no medical issues that could be aggravating the disorder. Following that, tell mum to please not scold or punish you when the unfortunate behaviour occurs – this will only reinforce and increase the intensity of the behaviour. Ask mum to rather teach you some alternative behaviours that you can happily and readily perform when confronted with the undesirable triggers.

E.G. If mum teaches you a good solid sit or down and rewards you handsomely with some nice tasty treats then you will learn that the cue indicates that good things are going to follow and there is no need for you to be uneasy or to urinate. So if you and mum meet a stranger or an unfamiliar dog while walking in the park or if a stranger comes to the house, all mum needs to do is give you the cue to sit and you will know not to be overly concerned.

Kind regards,

Jennifer