Older dog peeing in house while i am home. please help

jjski6

Hi,

My dog is a mutt about 11 years old. He is house trained. He never used to pee in the house until about a year or two ago. Now he pees in the house almost daily and usually when I am home. It usually happens if I go upstairs. When i come back down I find he has peed. He is in no way blocked from going up the stairs with me, but he never does go upstairs. It is not always in the same spot and I can tell that he knows it is wrong because he gives me a guilty look if I point at it and seems to understand not to do it however it seems he cannot help it. Latley it is becoming more and more of a problem as the house smells and the floor boards are becoming moldy. I took him to the vet who says he is healthy and that it could be some kind of separation anxiety. However I cannot seem to do anything to stop this. Any suggestions?

Much Appreciated

Criosphynx

You have your answer...supervision....hes not housetrained if hes peeing in the house....go back to square one as if hes a puppy.


that "guilty" look is just him picking up on your emotions. He has no idea what your talking about after the fact

pawzaddict

^ditto

fawkese1

double ditto

jjski6

i am not sure if this is the problem because sometimes he will give me that guilty look before i even find the pee and that is how i know it has happened. Additionally there was a good 8 year period where this never happened however i will look into it

thanks for the input

Tess

I read about this experiment once where a dog was left alone in his house and a human dumped the trash all over the floor. When the owner returned, the dog cringed, even though he had not been the cause of the mess.

I would bet that your dog gives you that look not out of guilt, but because he knows if there is pee on the floor, you won't be happy, so he's anticipating your reaction. I'm not sure a dog can feel "guilt" per say like we humans do. I'm not sure they know "right and wrong" like we do. What they do know is that owners will be unhappy in certain contexts. And when we are unhappy, they are unhappy.

If he was housetrained for 8 years, and is now 11 years old, then it appears something has changed in his physical health or emotional well being. Can you think of any factors in his life that might be the cause of this change?

You have a bit of a challenge going on if the floor is now soaked in pee, as it is now marked from his perspective as a "potty." If he can negotiate the stairs OK, maybe take him upstairs with you on a leash, then he can't make a mistake while you are gone. He would also be with you, thus not having separation anxiety. Ditto what Crio said about implementing a housetraining program to get him back on track. The key to that is preventing mistakes, and rewarding the correct behaviors.

He's now a geriatric boy, and what we can do at this point is take care of them and love them like a cherished elder in our family. See if you can figure out what's going on "behind the scenes" for your old fella, and maybe try to make some adjustments to his life routine. He may need just some more regular time one on one with you, even 10 minutes a day of clicker training of fun games, or time on the floor with him playing, or time on the couch with you... Sometimes it does not take much to help a dog feel happier, more secure and loved.

Well, let us know if there is anything we can discuss with you!

Mikey

Did your vet run any tests? This honestly sounds health related...

pawzaddict

Good point Mikey. Did your vet run a UA and Bloodwork or just do an exam?