HOW TO STOP YOUR DOG FROM MARKING
Do you have a dog that marks on your couch?
Does your dog pee on the corners of your bed?
Does your dog come right in the house and pee after you’ve taken him outside to use the bathroom?
The reasons dogs mark in the house may surprise you.
Dogs can display territorial behaviors such as marking because of UTI’s or urinary tract infections. They can also mark in the house because of improper house training. Another reason could be insecurity. Lastly, change in the household or with the dogs family can trigger marking.
So how do you determine WHY your dog is doing it?
Here’s some things to look at and consider…
Look at his medical history. Has he been prone to get UTI’s? If so, you might need to get him to a vet for a checkup.
Clean bill of health for Fido? Look at his home life. Are there stressors that could be triggering this behavior?
If you’ve recently had a baby or had a significant change in living situation, that might be making your dog nervous. Is there a new person in the house?
Are there other dogs coming onto your property? What about neighborhood cats? Cats can cause your do to get anxious and spastic especially if the kitty gets CLOSE to the house.
Your dog might be exhibiting dominance because he feels threatened or he feels the need to put up a ‘YOU’RE NOT WELCOME HERE’ message to the intruders, whether that’s human or animals.
Improper house training is a big reason why dogs pee or mark in the house.
We recommend monitoring his water intake to see if that’s a contributing factor.
We recommend restricting the access your dog has to the house until he’s trained enough to be trusted. How do you do that? If you have an area where you can fence him in with baby gates, try that for a short period of time. Take your dog out to potty often and reward him when he does go potty. If he potties in the quarantined area, clean it up as quickly as possible with an enzymatic cleaner and take him outside immediately. Any lingering smell of urine can trigger him to potty there again.
Any dog that pees in the house OR marks in the house needs to be re-trained. He’s learned bad behavior and set up bad habits. Just like with people, dogs that form bad habits take a bit to correct, so patience and knowledge is the key.
You can’t expect him to behave differently if you aren’t forcing him to make changes.
Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of ‘not smart’ and we don’t want to be that, now do we?
Potty training 101 starts from the moment you bring your dog home. If you didn’t get off on the right path, it isn’t too late.
We’ll give your some specific steps to house train/potty train your dog in our next article, be sure to check back to see our tips!
Thanks for stopping by!
Kelley Stewart, CEO | Pet Sitter
sit-stay-play In-home pet sitting & more.LLC
A little about our company: sit-stay-play started in 2008 to help pet parents (and farmers) with pet care and livestock care. We provide pet sitting, dog walking, poop scooping, pet taxi, hotel pet care and wedding pet care.
Our services are available in Muncie, Anderson, Yorktown, Daleville, Noblesville, Fishers, Indianapolis and South Bend.