petorama

Ask Yvette

DearYvette - I have an 11-year- old lab (cross??) who urinates where ever she is at the moment (on the bed, couch, floor). I don't think its medical because she manages to hold it all day while I am at work. How can I stop her of this terrible habit...?

Thanks - Nancy

First, let me start with a little administrative note. Please make sure you provide valid contact information when submitting questions. We reply to every e-mail, and never distribute your personal information.

Whenever a problem seems to make no sense, the first course of action is to take a dog to a veterinarian. Sometimes, incontinence can be the result of sphincter control issues, infections and other problems.

Even though your dog demonstrates that she is capable of holding her bladder, it is possible she is sleeping through the day, and the opportunity to have an accident does not present itself. If she was crated during your absences, it is also possible that she has learned to hold it when alone, but has no idea where to go otherwise.

After any medical issues are addressed, the next step is to start housetraining from step one. Some dogs are housetrained, but never learned how to communicate their need to go outside. Over time, these dogs just give up, and bad habits set in. Re-housetraining will help both issues, but you might want to go the extra mile and teach her how to ask to go out. Free instructions for housetraining, and how to ring a bell to go outside are on my website.

The final possibility is that the inappropriate urination is behavioural. Some dogs loose their bladder when something creates stress in their life. This can be something that seems irrelevant to you. A full bladder, plus a stress trigger results in loss of bladder.

Finding a trigger is often like a puzzle. You need to look at things from different angles. You also need to eliminate obvious wrong answers. Keeping a diary can be helpful in determining behavioural triggers. The most important points to note are what happened right before an accident, and right after an accident.

Dogs can become fearful of a number of things. A dog that is fearful of something outside is avoiding something in the yard. Other dogs I have met are afraid of ceiling fans. Since most people only have their fans on when they are home – voila!. Dogs from rescue scenarios often have difficulties with rapid hand movements. Stray dogs might react on restraint. They are not used to primate gestures of affection!

Always err on the side of caution and evaluate medical first. Then, go back to basics. If that fails, you need to figure out the trigger and journals are often the best way to accomplish that.

Yvette is an award winning pet writer and pet behavior columnist. She also is the author of Meeting Milo, a North American dog bite prevention program to reduce the approximately 2 million children bit by dogs annually. She is the owner of AwesomeDogs.ca and works as a behavior consultant in London, Ontario.

This column was originally featured in The Londoner
See more of Yvette... www.awesomedogs.ca
www.meetingmilo.com

Yvette has 2 dogs of her own, KIKI and KAYA. Take a look...

Previous Questions

• My husband and I have a puppy named Ruby, she i...
• View All Questions