Submissive Sprinkling?

[Puppy Madness]

Hello Again Everyone!

Gia is 14 weeks old now and ever since we brought her home, she has tinkled whenever she is approached by anyone who is petting her. She no longer does it for my, but everyone else, regardless of if they are family members or people she is meeting at my office. Needless to say, it is frustrating and I am starting to wonder if I will be carrying a roll of Bounty with me where ever I go. 

We had to wait a month before starting her in puppy school because the trainer we wanted to use was in mid cycle. Classes start next week, so I am hoping to get some insight on this situation there, but I thought I would reach out to my fellow doodle lovers to get your take as well. Is this something that is typical in these dogs and is there anything that I can do to help correct the behavior? 

Gia is not spayed yet. She will be over Christmas break. 

Thanks! 

Amber and Gia

[Deanna & Desi & Cori]

As a young puppy, Sedona did a lot of "excitement pee". As she grew, it became much less frequent and now, at 15 months, it rarely (if ever) happens. We didn't do anything - she just grew up :)

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Vern is 10 months and used to do it all the time. Now, he will just do it every now and then. I sympathize with you because for awhile there he was doing it with everyone he met. I had more than one person squeal, "Vern just peed on my foot". I guess he wanted to make an impression.

[Jessica & Lucie]

Lucie had the "excitement peeing" issue too. At 17 months she doesn't do it 95% of the time. Now as long as she doesn't have a full bladder (first thing in the morning) it doesn't happen.

Our best solution was to have people "meet" her outside in the grass, because we knew it was inevitable. Once she had met them we went inside and then it was fine. When this wasn't an option we would instruct visitors not to pet her or talk to her at all, just ignore her for several minutes during which I would try to distract her with a toy. Once 10 minutes or so had gone by, she was fine and wouldn't pee. It is really hard when you have new people who want to meet your puppy! Just explain that she has to get adjusted and calm down before they greet her (which is also good practice in not rewarding jumping).

It is frustrating, however just remember its isn't intentional. With Lucie she just got so excited she couldn't help it, it just came out. Limiting the excitement seemed to be our best option. The hardest thing would be at the pet store, because people would walk over and talk to her in their high pitched excited voice and pet her, I didn't bring her for a while because we couldn't avoid it.

[Gail McHugh]

We just finished puppy school and it is very common, a lot of the dogs did the same thing and the teacher said just to give them time to grow up a little. Roxy is 7 months now and stopped doing it a few weeks ago, hope that helps