Excited Peeing

[heapslp]

Hello I've been reading on this forum for awhile now and most of the times can find the info I need. I have 2 yorkies, a girl Korra and a boy Henry. Henry is almost a year old and he pees when he is excited, which is fairly often. We use belly bands whenever he is not in his expen.

The worst part is excited peeing first thing in the morning. He sleeps through the night no problem but he has to wear a belly band at night because when my alarm goes off or he even thinks I'm going to get up he gets really excited, starts bouncing around the bed, and pees. Sometimes it's when he sees me reach for him, sometimes he just pees. I am literally getting out of bed within a minute of my alarm going off trying to scoop him up in my half asleep state and get downstairs and outside before he's peed.

Obviously peeing in the belly band isn't as bad as peeing on the comforter, but it is still smelly and doesn't help with our potty training battle... and sometimes (like this morning) they leak and pee still ends up on the comforter - ugh.

I've tried turning off my alarm before it goes off so he doesn't get so excited, but he's caught on to that. We've also tried having him sleep in his crate, but I prefer him to sleep in my bed as he sleeps more soundly which means I do too ... and when my alarm goes off and he is in the crate he literally screeches at top volume until I can get him out of the crate and even then he's peeing in excitement.

Does anyone have any tips?

[bchgirl]

Oh goodness...he is just so happy to see you in the morning. Bless his heart. I think you've probably found the best solution in your case...belly bands..

[yorkietalkjilly]

First and foremost, get a vet check to be sure there is no low-grade UTI going on, a tiny cyst in the urethra, etc.

Some of the excited or submissive urination issues are often related to showing respect and fear - some of it related to unhappy housebreaking issues related to the idea he is doing something wrong and/or just lack of confidence. Punishment or unhappiness with his potty habits can unfortunately tie the act of peeing to getting in trouble or unhappy situations and he is always in the state of trying to please/appease/submit in order to keep his pack leader happy with him. Dogs often urinate in submission, especially when a little fear or insecurity exists in the dog. Other dogs urinate out of excitement, almost as they do when very quickly marking trees when excited. Try to take all excitement out of any events when precede excited urination and keep the dog calm by repetitive training him to remain calm and rewarding him when he can. He will learn good impulse control this way. More than likely his alarm-urination is a combination of excited and submissive urination.

Giving a dog a good sense of self confidence by going through a good, basic obedience program will give him self-confidence and a sense of accomplishment, self-respect as he learns, get praise, treats and pleasure from you when he learns things. He learns you are team members and learns to respect your authority and loses any fear and insecurity in time over working with you at learning things. This will help him to not to feel as insecure and lack confidence as he learns and gains pride in himself and this tends to help submissive type urination. Confident dogs rarely submissively urinate and then only when an alpha dog is "requiring" it in some way.

Training the dog to immediately sit will usually keep one from urinating. With other dogs, they won't pee when lying down. Whichever works for your dog, have him do that immediately when the alarm goes off and keep him in a down/stay until you can get him off of the bed and outside. For a time, you might have to have him sleep in an airline carrier on a chair pulled up to your bed as you are training him.

Another thing, desensitize him repeatedly to the alarm going off and take much of the excitement out of it. So it goes like this:

1. Alarm rings.
2. "Sit" or "Lie down" is the first thing out of your mouth.
3. When he does, say "Stay" and lock eyes with him. Get slowly out of bed and take dog with you, praising/treating when he is on the floor. Put him into another sit/stay while you are turning off the alarm and take him outside.
4. Praise/treat lavishly when he goes outside.

Repeat about 5 or 6 times in a row several times a day and keep working on it until he's got this down cold. Alarm is nothing exciting. He'll hear it so much he'll soon get really used to it. And, soon he will learn that the alarm going off is his sign to go into his sit/lie down and stay until you get up and move him to the floor, where he gets a treat and goes into another while you turn off the alarm and gather him up to take outside.

You could alternatively train him to go into an open airline carrier when the alarm goes off and carry him outside in that until he's more confident and can control his morning alarm excitement.

I read your post as if he is sleeping with you when the alarm goes off but if he is down on the floor, the training is the same, you just don't have to worry about getting him off the bed, just off the floor without peeing. Having him sit- or lie/stay will help but just as much will be the training and desensitization what to do when the alarm goes off and working to train him at obedience to give him a strong sense of self-confidence.

Whatever you do, never ever lose patience or yell or mutter angrily when he does pee when/where he shouldn't - it will only serve to reinforce his appeasement/excitement/submissive urination.

These are some things to try if you want, tweaking as necessary for better results, but these have worked for me in rehabbing dogs with similar problems in the past. No doubt you will get other suggestions and should always use the ones that best work for you and your dog.

[yorkietalkjilly]

If your dog is on the floor when the alarm goes off, you might train him to come to a pee pad you keep right by the bed and sit or lie down and remain in position on that until you get up, turn off the alarm and get him outside. When you work with the alarm going off over and over, have him come to the pee pad to lie down and remain calm and wait. That way, until his dribbles are dried up, your floor will be protected. In time, with good obedience and repetitive alarm training, this should stop altogether as you train him in another way to react and respond. The training will just give him a new job to do once he hears the alarm and he will feel he is "doing his part" of starting your morning off!

I personally would let the alarm ring a while so that the sudden pizzazz of it is de-fanged a bit. Most people arise and lunge for that thing immediately and dogs read all of that as excitement and with some of us - MOST of us - a sense of displeasure in our faces and attitudes. If they sense you are immediately displeased, it very well could be triggering the excited/submissive urinating just from that displeasure alone but combine that with the sudden alarm and excitement - a recipe for peeing.

Take the power out of that alarm clock by getting a new one that has a different sound or music and let it go on for a time so no sudden, excited motions and hurry are tied to it. And with the repetitive training of it going off, it will further defuse it as an instant trigger. And the longer your dog can remain in a sit- or down/stay after it goes off, the better. I'd keep training him to go to his pee pad and go into a down/stay and remain there calmly as you arise and gently, unhurriedly turn off your new music alarm and take him outside, where he gets much more praise the moment he "goes".

[MyTrixie143]

All great advice Jeanie.

I've had some excited urinators in my life. I currently have one that is going through this. The most important thing is to ignore the peeing. In other words, when he does end up peeing because he is excited don't make a big deal out of it. Don't rush off to put him on a pad or yell or scold. Act as if literally nothing happened because when you move quickly or yell it will just make him pee all the more and encourage the behavior. I know it is hard not to want to snatch him up quickly when this happens but you can't. Make your morning wake up slow and calm as if you had not a care in the world. Maybe you'll get out of bed right away, maybe not. Keep movements slow and boring. Slowly and calmly take him to the appropriate place to pee. When he does pee there, praise him for how calm he remained. If he peed too soon, ignore it for now and clean it up in a little bit with not an inch of frustration coming from you. This is the hardest part, for you to remain calm no matter what because he feeds off of you. If you are excited or frustrated he will feel it and then he becomes that and ends up peeing.
Once they have learned you ignore the behavior, they become calmer as they aren't as excited and the behavior completely stops.

Its much harder training for the owner than it is for the dog as we all hate accidents and want to rush them to a safe spot where they can pee rather than having them pee on our bed or floor. But with excitable or submissive peeing, you've got to let it go. For example, you wake up and he's all excited and is peeing in your bed. Slowly and calmly walk him over or pick him up and put him in his potty area. Go back to the bed in a few minutes without him to calmly clean the bed. If you can calmly take him to his potty area an he does go, praise him for being so good by staying calm. Don't praise unless you made it there without him peeing.

My Harmony would pee anytime you tried to pick her up, she would get so excited. If I rushed her off to the nearest pad or exclaimed or yelled, it would just cause her to do it more often. Once I literally stopped saying or doing anything when it happened, just slowly picked her up regardless of what happened and continued on my way, the behavior completely stopped. It is amazing how quickly it stops once you ignore it. I would say within just a few days of me doing this, I could then pick her up without her ever peeing again and she hasn't done it since.

[heapslp]

Thank you for your tips. I will try slowing down the morning routine to make it less exciting for him.

I do reach quickly for the alarm so I don't disturb my husband, but I'm going to look into a vibrating alarm clock or something of that nature so I won't feel the urge to rush and turn it off immediately.

I've been working with Henry to sit before he gets what he wants - mostly being picked up onto the couch - so I will try to get him to do that before I get up which is what he wants. Unfortunately, he gets SO excited he just CAN'T. SIT. STILL. :-)

I tell him everyday it's a good thing he's cute! Thanks again for the tips.

- Lauren

[yorkietalkjilly]

Originally Posted by heapslp

Thank you for your tips. I will try slowing down the morning routine to make it less exciting for him.

I do reach quickly for the alarm so I don't disturb my husband, but I'm going to look into a vibrating alarm clock or something of that nature so I won't feel the urge to rush and turn it off immediately.

I've been working with Henry to sit before he gets what he wants - mostly being picked up onto the couch - so I will try to get him to do that before I get up which is what he wants. Unfortunately, he gets SO excited he just CAN'T. SIT. STILL. :-)

I tell him everyday it's a good thing he's cute! Thanks again for the tips.

- Lauren

Keep working with him. His excitement is learned and perpetuated by habit but if you keep working with him to remain calm, he will start to learn to do that behavior to replace the other. He's been "learning" to do things his way for his entire life so going against how ever many weeks or months that has taken to shape this behavior, it could take almost that long to reshape it - even less if you are a talented and inspired trainer. Not many of us are that so we just muddle along and stick to the new way we want them to behave and they do start to understand that and then their way of reacting changes over time. Sometimes we see "instant" success on dog training shows on TV but believe me, those are edited, often have a team of dog trainers working behind the scenes and all types of circumstances to reshape behaviors but those dogs still learn the same way ours do - by changing circumstances if we can(such as the type or alarm and your reaction to it), stopping old behavior and showing the dog a new way to behave. It can take time and the dog will often regress to the old behavior at time but over time, he will begin to learn the new way to go. Repetitive but short sessions of training the dog how to react calmly and what to do when the alarm goes off for a treat will get you there quickest.

[yorkietalkjilly]

Originally Posted by MyTrixie143

All great advice Jeanie.

I've had some excited urinators in my life. I currently have one that is going through this. The most important thing is to ignore the peeing. In other words, when he does end up peeing because he is excited don't make a big deal out of it. Don't rush off to put him on a pad or yell or scold. Act as if literally nothing happened because when you move quickly or yell it will just make him pee all the more and encourage the behavior. I know it is hard not to want to snatch him up quickly when this happens but you can't. Make your morning wake up slow and calm as if you had not a care in the world. Maybe you'll get out of bed right away, maybe not. Keep movements slow and boring. Slowly and calmly take him to the appropriate place to pee. When he does pee there, praise him for how calm he remained. If he peed too soon, ignore it for now and clean it up in a little bit with not an inch of frustration coming from you. This is the hardest part, for you to remain calm no matter what because he feeds off of you. If you are excited or frustrated he will feel it and then he becomes that and ends up peeing.
Once they have learned you ignore the behavior, they become calmer as they aren't as excited and the behavior completely stops.

Its much harder training for the owner than it is for the dog as we all hate accidents and want to rush them to a safe spot where they can pee rather than having them pee on our bed or floor. But with excitable or submissive peeing, you've got to let it go. For example, you wake up and he's all excited and is peeing in your bed. Slowly and calmly walk him over or pick him up and put him in his potty area. Go back to the bed in a few minutes without him to calmly clean the bed. If you can calmly take him to his potty area an he does go, praise him for being so good by staying calm. Don't praise unless you made it there without him peeing.

My Harmony would pee anytime you tried to pick her up, she would get so excited. If I rushed her off to the nearest pad or exclaimed or yelled, it would just cause her to do it more often. Once I literally stopped saying or doing anything when it happened, just slowly picked her up regardless of what happened and continued on my way, the behavior completely stopped. It is amazing how quickly it stops once you ignore it. I would say within just a few days of me doing this, I could then pick her up without her ever peeing again and she hasn't done it since.

Love it!