my puppy pees everywhere

Question
My puppy is about 13 weeks old.  He seemed to be doing very well at becoming house trained.  Lately, he pees when I touch him, or sometimes just talk to him.  It's mostly me that he reacts to in this way.  I've tried being stern, I've tried being overly nice, I've tried just acting normal...got any ideas?

Answer
Hi Holly,

Your dog is submissive peeing. Submissive peeing is completely outside of your dog's control and therefore being stern only serves to make it much worse. Being nice doesn't help much either. He may outgrow it or he may not. Building his confidence will go a long way towards perhaps helping him overcome this expression of submission.  You can build a dog's confidence through obedience training using positive methods, agility training (requires obedience first), lots and lots of socialization to people, other animals, places, situations etc. Always keeping things happy and upbeat and calm.

Don't allow anyone to bend over your dog because that triggers the submissive peeing in many submissive pee-ers.  Whenever anyone greets your dog, have them look away, don't reach over his head or grab quickly.

Figure out what triggers the peeing (situations, your tone of voice, your body posture etc) and avoid doing those things until your dog gets more confidence.

Since your dog isn't even aware that he is doing this, no amount of correcting will make it go away.  Just clean it up and build up his confidence.

Good luck.

Jaz