Friday, August 8th, 2008

Housetrained Lab Started Peeing In The House

Angela asked for help with this problem:

“My 8 month lab recently starting peeing in the house and he is fully house trained. I do not know if his mad at me or even what to do. Please Help”

My guess is that you have an intact dog (ie, you have not had him neutered) and his male hormones are starting to kick in.  Because of this, he will instinctively want to mark out his territory, including your home and furnishings!

Unless you want to put him to stud or show him, you should consider having him neutered as soon as possible.  There are lots of health benefits associated with neutering and in many cases it will make your dog calmer and less prone to marking indoors.

If he is persistently marking in the house, and you are making sure he has plenty of opportunity to toilet outdoors, then you may need to do some aversive training.  This involves catching him in the act and interrupting his behavior.  You can do this by making an “ach!” sound when you see him lifting his leg, then immediately taking him outdoors and giving him a chance to pee there.  It is also important to make sure you thoroughly clean up where he has soiled before.  Some of my previous posts in the housetraining category discuss this in more detail. 

You may have to work on this for a few weeks to correct this, but he will learn more quickly if you are consistent with the training and confine him in a crate or small room when you cannot supervise him

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • ThisNext
  • e-mail
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Live
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • Spurl
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
  • YahooMyWeb

Leave a Reply