tired

Question
we have two white golden retrievers.  one male one year old and a 9 month female.  she is the problem, she keeps getting up in the middle of the night to urinate.  she paces around until we take her out.  or should i say my wife takes her out.
what to do?

Answer
Females are often slower to fully housetrain because of the pressure of the uterus on the bladder, and it's not uncommon for any dog of either sex to not be fully housetrained until 9 months or older.  Be glad your dog is waiting to be taken out!  Furthermore, your female might be close to going into heat and the additional influx of hormones and possibly full uterus might be exacerbating her urge to urinate.  (I HOPE the male is neutered!)  BUT this might not be related to her need to urinate at all.

To address the possibility that she does need to urinate, consider what time you allow your dogs to have free access to water and what time they both go out to eliminate last thing at night.  Be sure you're OBSERVING what they do outside; the female might not be urinating.  You need to GO OUT with both dogs at night or allow them out separately and just go out with the female, reward/praise her elimination at the end of the evening.  Remove the water bowl approximately 7:00PM if you go to bed around 11PM and the dogs are allowed out just before you retire.  Once you KNOW the female is urinating during the last outing, and you have rewarded it, wait to see what happens with the night time pacing.

If this is not truly related to the need to urinate, she may be responding to some night time anxiety caused by a factor you haven't considered (such as a noise outside, it only takes once to establish a fear response.)  If a dog paces at night and the owner is concerned about "accidents" and takes the dog out, the owner might be inadvertently training the dog to need to urinate during the night.  If you're certain the dog does not have to urinate (because you have observed her successful performance before bedtime and water has been removed), then you need to IGNORE the pacing.  The dog will eventually settle down.  As both dogs get a bit older and the weather gets warmer, you should be able to allow water until bedtime.