Excitement Pee

[Dot, Maggie and KoKo]

Rosie is the first dog we have had that can't contain herself when she greets people. I don't know if there is a way of stopping this. Any advice would be appreciated.

Dottie

[Deb, Connor & Simon]

How old is Rosie? If she's still a baby, it might just take some time for everything to develop.

[Melissa, Samson & Shelby]

By 7 or 8 months, my Shelby grew out of it. When I had asked her trainer about it, she said that she would grow out of it and she was right. Good luck!!

[Dot, Maggie and KoKo]

Thanks for your encouragement. Rosie is almost ten months old so maybe soon she'll be done with this.

[Sally Rollins]

Both of my boys did this, Dakota grew out of it about 8-9 mos old and Choco is 7 mos and he still does it, so hopefully he will stop sooon!

[Joy Originator of GiantSchnoodles]

Doorbell
Clicker Training Back Chaining for Replacing Inappropriate Behaviors with appropriate Greeting

Chaining, in clicker training is when you teach several different behaviors and chain them together with one command. Sometimes it is easiest to teach the last behavior first. In many cases such as cat chasing greeting the guest and sometimes excitement urination, what you want to do is replace the undesired behavior with a different behavior.
For cat chasing I use the down command as soon as I see a cat. Before long, the dog generalizes the comand and is going down as soon as she sees the cat.
For appropriate greeting of guests and this may also help in excitement urination you want to train several behaviors.
1. Get a small piece of carpet. This will be your target rug
2. Place your target rug where you want your dog to be when you receive guests
3. Take your dog to the rug
4. Click and treat when your dog goes on the rug
5. (I am assuming that you have already conditioned your dog to click and treat. If not, you need to go to the basic conditioning so that your dog knows s/he will get a treat when you click. I suggest you get a book, video, CD on basic click and treat if you haven’t done this, and teach it first.) See www.clickertraining.com
6. Give the command - stay – (I am assuming that you have already taught your
dog to stay.
7. When your dog stays on the rug, add a command such as – doorbell -.
8. Once the dog knows to go to the target rug on comand, use the command and run to the rug saying – doorbell - and click when she sits on the rug. Of course you must always treat when you click.
9. Get someone to knock on the door. Run to rug with command “doorbell” dog gets on rug, click and treat. Eventually, the dog will generalize the behavior so that when someone knocks on the door, rings bell or however you’ve trained her, she will run to her target rug.
10. The reason this can be helpful for excitement urination, is that you are substituting one behavior with another. The dog has a job. She is not submissive. Whatever she is thinking that makes her pee, she is not thinking any more, She is thinking about following through a set of commands. Also if she pees, hopefully it will be on the target rug. Maybe get a larger one for this particular problem. You could also put one in the car so when people go “ooh, ah” your dog goes to the target rug instead of “pee”.
11. For excitement urination, you can use a belly band on males. Cut the turtleneck off a t shirt. Put it around his middle over his penis, and put a sanitary pad underneath. Be sure to remove it when you take him out to potty.
12. For females, go to thrift store and purchase some toddler lycra type pants. Make a hole for the tail. Put a sanitary pad in the pants. You can usually purchase them in the same color as the dog so they are hardly noticeable. If the legs are too long, cut them off. Again, be sure to remove them when you go out to potty.
13. Be sure that you never punish your dog for urination excitement or submissive peeing. Even a negative change in your mood, will prolong your puppy in getting over the problem.
14. Finally, for excitement or submissive urination, after s/he has had all her shots, take your puppy everywhere you can that it is okay to pee. Outside malls, parks, outdoor concerts, parades, walks through the neighborhood. Invite everyone to pet him/her. Mariachis and pipe bands are especially scary. Let her pee away. Ignore the peeing. She’ll get used to it and get over it. This will help her get over it in excitable situations.
This is a process that does not happen over night. It takes daily practice. But the good news is you can practice only 10 minutes per day. In fact it is better to practice for a very short interval every day than to practice for long periods of time.
Please let me know what problem you are having with your dog and if and how these suggestions help you. Also if you have any questions along the way in the training, feel free to ask at the schnoodle doodle poodle hybrid chat forum http://disc.yourwebapps.com/Indices/224017.htmlI’ll try to answer.
Copyright Joy de la Ren San Diego Ca. USA May 09
Puppy love from Joy, & Furry Folk

Stay
Nancy P
To Joy
Thu Oct 16 17:02:41 2003
198.81.26.104

Joy:
Thanks for the reprint on the article. Tanner is great at going to her rug when we say "doorbell." She lays down...even puts her head down. The problem is that as soon as the person comes though the door, she is up like she was shot from a cannon. So how do you get the dog to stay on the rug?

Good question. Remember back chaining is teaching several behaviors and then chaining them together. It is all done in little baby steps. To achieve this, you begin by teaching your dog to stay. You can do this on your daily walks. Have your dog walk at heel position. Halt and sit your dog in heel position. Put your hand in front of her nose and say “stay”. Step directly in front of your dog, facing your dog. At the beginning, you will be very close to your dog’s nose so your dog can’t go anywhere or do anything but sit and stay. You want a win win situation. Think CAP. Command, action, praise (click & treat is praise). You step in front of your dog, the dog can’t go anywhere, she’s doing the right action. Start with 2 seconds in that position. Click & treat. Give her lots of praise. “stay good stay” . Use the word command in the praise and use praise and the word command often. Once she has the idea, hold the stay for 2 seconds, click treat & praise. Don’t forget to sandwich the words: “stay good stay” This way your dog is learning the word “stay” applies to this behavior, not the word, “good”. Slowly increase the amount of time of the stay, a few more seconds each day. Do not expect a puppy under 4 months to stay longer than 3 minutes. After 4 months you can increase the stay to 3 hours if you need that behavior.
Do not use corrections until the puppy has learned the behavior. If the puppy breaks the stay, just go back to rewarding the behavior in less time. Eg. If the puppy knows how to stay for 5 seconds. Reward at 5 seconds. But if you know he will break at 10 seconds, reward at 9 seconds. Make it a win win situation.

[Adina P]

Excitement pee and submissive urination are so close to the same thing...and they both tend to be about as difficult to do anything about. You can't correct it but you can try to prevent situations or manage situations so it is less likely to happen. It does go away with time...but every dog is different. Our Thule, we came home to my hubby at 11 months...she continued to have this problem well past 1 year. Here is a link to a recent discussion: http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/submissive-urinating

[Joy Originator of GiantSchnoodles]

Hi Adina and all, Yes this problem can be resolved. Pls read my article. Puppy love from Joy & furry folk