Housebroken Adopted Dog Indoor Peeing

Question
Hello Shelley,

We took home a dog last week that is a Katrina stray, up from Louisiana (we live in Minneapolis). Roscoe is a two year old Golden/Bassett mix. We have a 13 year old Golden/Shepherd F he gets along with very well.

He had several accidents the first week due to intestinal worms, since cured by vet. He is very clean and well housebroken otherwise - woke me up at 3AM to go out to pee several nights ago.

Question - last night I heard a peeing sound in our bedroom at 2AM and saw him peeing next to the dresser. This was only 4 hours after a walk. This morning he peed on a leather couch after a walk.

He is a wonderful dog, but has probably led a hard life the past year. Is this dominance behavior? Marking? Nervousness?

I should mention he seems very smart, and my daughter and wife both left the house Sunday for travel. Might this trigger anxiety?

What are our options to treat this?

Best Wishes,

Isaac

Answer
Hi Isaac,

Thank you for writing to me.  I am sorry about the delay.  For some reason your email ended up in the AOL spam folder and I just retrieved it.

The first thing I would suggest for your new family member is to have him checked for any kind of bladder or kidney infection, diabetes, or other possible physical causes for urination.

You might want to purchase a bottle of cranberry capsules at the health food store and add one to each of his meals, just in case it turns out that he has a bladder infection. You can open it up and sprinkle it in with his food.

In the meantime, follow puppy housebreaking guidelines which focuses on prevention.  This can be done by withholding food and water until just before your dog gets walked and making sure that he relieves himself before he returns to the house.  Restrict where he is allow to roam.  If he is crate trained, start crating him again but not more than 4 hrs at a time.  After he has relieved himself, he can have free access to your home but after two hours, return him to the crate.  Be sure to keep a predictable schedule that your dog can rely on.

If your dog makes a mistake, do not punish him.  Instead, stick to the plan for puppy housebreaking and concentrate on prevention.  Praise him for successful behavior.

I am concerned that your dog peed on the couch.  This could be a sign of anxiety which would require some additional behavorial techniques.

The most important things to concentrate on are any medical causes, puppy house breaking and looking for signs of separation anxiety.

Good luck.

Best,
Shelley Davis
www.bednbiscuit.com