urinating in food bowl

Question
Hi, Ms. Downes,  We are at our wit's end trying to fix this. Paleface is 4 years old, large mixed breed, neutered, healthy, lives in large fenced yard with 2 females (not spayed yet.  Recently, he has begun urinating in the large tub-type food bowl just minutes before the food is brought.  When he sees my husband coming towards the yard, he manages to urinate in the tub without our seeing him and we then have to wash and dry the tub, allow it to air dry completely before feeding.  One of the 'girls' is his sibling, Tonto (somewhat timid, the other is Sweetie (age unknown, rescued)a rather short legged brindle.  These 3 have been in this yard together for the past 4 years and this started about 2-3 months ago.  We have 7 dogs and 13 cats that were all homeless until they found us.  Each is very independent, super intelligent, healthy, well-fed, clean and very, very loved.  Our newest family member was trying to survive on wet leaves, every bone showed and he was so hungry, he could not get up to walk.  Mickey is a gorgeous pup (about 6mos.)of unknown breeding.  Paleface's action is making us crazy and we need to find the solution to what is going on so this can stop. He has actually 'peed' on the food.  I so hope you can help us with this, we have no idea of what to do to stop this behavior.  Thank you so much for be on this site and answering questions.  Peggy and Jeff

Answer
Hi Peggy, You sound like a wonderful family adopting and giving a good life to these animals. Even neutered male dogs and sometimes females will mark territory. My suggestion to you is to call the dog to you at feeding time and put him on a leash. Claim the feeder by not allowing him near it at all until the other dogs have eaten. Do it on the leash a few times and you may find you will not need the leash, just call him over and claim the feeder. Once he understands that the feeder is not his territory he will probably give up. Giving the other dogs the ability to eat first takes away his dominance over them. There are many other techniques that you could use, but I suggest that you give this one a try.  Please leave me some feedback and be sure to follow-up with me to let me know how things go with Paleface. Thank you for writing. Regards, Susan