Seperation Anxiety Urination?

Question
We have a 5 month old male boxer.  He is extremely attached to my husband and doesn't like when my husband leaves him - at all.  My husband takes him out in the morning before work to relieve himself and he does both pee and poo.  Once my husband leaves for work, (within 1/2 hour) the dog will pee at the door or at the bottom of the stairs.  Even if my husband is downstairs and comes up to get changed or for a meal(the dog is not allowed upstairs until this problem is solved), the dog will pee at the bottom of the stairs.  Otherwise, he is barking or whining when he needs to go out.  How do we address this problem?  Thank you so much for your help.

Answer
Hi Terri,

Please keep in mind that I can only answer your question in a 'generally speaking' type of manner because I don't know you, your family or the puppy personally.  :)

Presuming that he is healthy, has no urinary tract or bladder/kidney/liver problems and that this behavior is actual urination and not marking:

Dogs (or puppies) that develop SA are normally coddled and/or overly spoiled by their owners.  Often they are coo'd at, picked up and carried or fussed over far greater than a dog should be.  Many humans tend to treat puppies like little people and who can help it?!  

Dogs are mentally different than we are.  When they are overly coddled, they tend to be less confident.  Coo'ing and baby-talk sounds like whining to a dog.  Remember that dogs don't know English...they know tone of voice and the sound of words.  A puppy doesn't know what 'sit' means, for example, but knows that sound means his butt should hit the floor.  When teaching a dog sit you could call the command 'attack' and he'd not know the difference...make sense?  

The good news is that any dog can be cured of SA and, even better, you're dealing with a puppy.

What you need to do is build his confidence as the humans as leaders.  A great way to start this is to use the NILF method of training.

http://www.pets.ca/articles/article-dog_nilf.htm

Further, if your husband is indeed spoiling the puppy, that has to stop.  Everyone should speak in a normal tone of voice, he shouldn't be picked up and carried or overly cuddled.  There's nothing wrong with praise for good behavior and affection but keep it to a not so over the top level.

Be sure to clean the spots with an enzymatic cleaner as well...this will remove the smell completely and not be so attractive as a spot to 'go'.

If I can be of further help, please let me know.