# Submissive urination



## tituscollins (May 23, 2014)

What am I doing wrong? We have our first German shepherd. Wanted one for years, but knew they were a tougher breed to raise...did lots of research. Years later, went to see a breeder and met both parents. Both were reserved, but not shy and were both friendly. We adopted a male, Titus, who is now 8 months old. We are a stay at home family...he lives 100% inside with us. Sleeps in our daughter's room. He is attached to me mostly, so I have backed off of the feeding, training to have a balance of other family members taking care of him. !3 year old daughter has taken him through puppy class and works outside with him. We all work, play and feed him. He listens to me mostly and will ignore my daughter when she calls him. He decided to be afraid of men when he was 6 mo old. Men who have always been around him. My husband scolded him once when he peed on the floor and we think this is what started that. My husband now is very calm with him, walks him and has even held his bowl to re-establish a relationship with him. (advice from a wonderful german shepherd rescue lady) It has rebuilt the relationship and for the past couple weeks, he has not been shy around my husband. 
We have also well socialized him. Before the weather became to hot, we took him everywhere on a regular basis. Bass Pro, farm stores, park, walking trails and even church, where he was handled and played with all the kids afterwards.
The only issue we've had with him is what I would call submission urination and cowering when someone comes to our house...which happens often. He will cower and go to the other room. We instruct people not to make a big deal about him...greet us and then allow them to give him a treat. He comes for the treat, but pees at the same time.
We thought we made progress, because he hadn't peed around anyone for almost a week!! Yeah....6 days. And then....(Awkward)...I was rubbing my husbands feet while sitting on the couch and Titus came up...leaned on me and peed on the floor. I was mad and he knew it. This all happened while our daughter was at the back door calling him to go outside. 
I think he's jealous...possessive....I don't know. We need help. We work him all the time. We go for two walks a day, play ball with him on our 12 acres. He has a happy, healthy life. We have talked to the vet...he's been recently neutered and he is medically okay. When he wakes up in the morning, sometimes we walk around 10 minutes before he pees....so I know he can hold it. For some reason, he chooses to release it when he's upset. 
We had to board him a couple weeks ago and when he came home he wouldn't look at me, come to me and when he did, he peed beside me. It took him two days to stop acting depressed. I decided not to baby him..."fine...be upset...I'm going on with my business." I called the boarding facility and they didn't have any issues with him at all. It's a beautiful place, lots of play time...you can see your dog on-line anytime you want to check in. No issues, no peeing, no cowering, no nothing, happy puppy. She did remind me...he's still a puppy.
Titus has a good life, we have a calm house. No one is doing anything to him to make him do these behaviors. But...there is something we're doing wrong. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I can answer any questions. We do have him signed up for a second obedience class. They are a reward based group...no "roll-overs" in this group.
Thank you!!! We love our dog, but we're doing something wrong.


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## Unforgiving (Jul 27, 2014)

Interested to see what people think, because I have seen this in two other dogs owned by seperate people. One is 6 years old Doberman female, the other is a 4 year old Lab male.

Strange! But nice advice about building relationship by holding the food bowl.


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## Stosh (Jun 26, 2010)

It's not that unusual. My dog did the same thing in certain situations- even at 4 he still pees a little when one vet (not the other) goes to pick him up and put him on the table. I would just ignore it and go on. He will most likely out grow it. Perhaps neutering at such a young age, I don't know if that happens with males.


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## Wolfenstein (Feb 26, 2009)

I would say every case of submissive urination I've seen is a case of misunderstanding body language. With these dogs, it is a HUGE DEAL to figure out little subtle changes so you can head things off at the pass. On the plus side, you're going to be a freakin' pro by the time you're done dealing with it! 

When you're talking about submissive urination, you're talking about a behavior that is absolutely, 100% involuntary. So you can completely disregard any thoughts on your housebreaking being an issue, or him being able to be able to hold his urine, because he has absolutely no control over it. Submissive urination is an appeasement gesture, and a pretty big one. In doggy body language, it's the equivalent of yelling, "IT'S OK, I'M COMPLETELY HARMLESS LOOK HOW HARMLESS I AM!" The more a dog feels uneasy, the more the behavior is going to come out.

You're doing really well to ignore the behavior, you're definitely on the right track. A lot of people see the dog on the floor cowering like that, and they think, "Oh look, happy puppy wants a belly rub!" then they hover over the dog and get it more excited, which makes them pee even more! Even more than you're doing, though, start to become really aware of your own body language when it's going on. Things like standing over your dog, looking down at him, even talking to him, can seem like things he should continue the behavior over.

*The only time you ever want to give your dog attention is for good, confident body language.* This is the most important key! Any time he's getting any sort of response at all for any submissive posture, he's getting that posturing reinforced. I think you may be inadvertently doing that by giving treats when people are coming over. If he's cowering and peeing while he's coming up for a treat, what behavior are you reinforcing? 

It's a good idea to start reading up about body language as it'll really go a long way to helping you understand what your dog is saying. I found a pretty good guide here:
How To Read Your Dog's Body Language | Modern Dog magazine

You only, only, only want to give ANY sort of attention at all for confident behaviors. If your dog is fearful or submissive at all, then just completely ignore the dog and look away. Ideally, after starting to see these changes in body language, you'll see a difference in your dog.


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## blackshep (Aug 3, 2012)

I agree with Wolfstein!!

It's a separate issue from housebreaking. My dog did this A LOT as a pup. She will still do it a bit if she gets over-excited.

If someone exciting is coming over (my sister) I will take her out to pee before I let her greet my sister. I tell my sister to just ignore her for a bit, turn her back etc, until my dog was able to calm herself a bit.

I also found it helped to keep moving. Don't lean over, avoid eye contact, don't talk in an excited voice etc. she didn't pee if I didn't stop and give her a chance to squat.

It did get a lot better, but took a while. She will still the odd time dribble a bit if she's say, getting a belly rub and really excited, but very rarely now. It's always my fault if/when it happens. lol


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## Girl_Loves_Hydraulics (Apr 13, 2014)

Wolfenstein said:


> I would say every case of submissive urination I've seen is a case of misunderstanding body language. With these dogs, it is a HUGE DEAL to figure out little subtle changes so you can head things off at the pass. On the plus side, you're going to be a freakin' pro by the time you're done dealing with it!
> 
> When you're talking about submissive urination, you're talking about a behavior that is absolutely, 100% involuntary. So you can completely disregard any thoughts on your housebreaking being an issue, or him being able to be able to hold his urine, because he has absolutely no control over it. Submissive urination is an appeasement gesture, and a pretty big one. In doggy body language, it's the equivalent of yelling, "IT'S OK, I'M COMPLETELY HARMLESS LOOK HOW HARMLESS I AM!" The more a dog feels uneasy, the more the behavior is going to come out.
> 
> ...


I followed this advice, and it worked well for me. Lena was doing this with men too. I will say though my situation is a little different as she is much younger. But since I've made the changes, she hasn't done it in the last 3 weeks...She has definitely become a more confident pup


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## my boy diesel (Mar 9, 2013)

> Submissive urination is an appeasement gesture, and a pretty big one. In doggy body language, it's the equivalent of yelling, "IT'S OK, I'M COMPLETELY HARMLESS LOOK HOW HARMLESS I AM!" The more a dog feels uneasy, the more the behavior is going to come out.


this exactly 

and


> I was mad and he knew it. This all happened while our daughter was at the back door calling him to go outside.


this is the wrong response

i would actually start putting the dog up when you know company is going to arrive
that is put the dog up at least 20 minutes before company arrives until you can get the submissive peeing under control and build the dogs confidence

it sounds to me as if you are ignoring the peeing sometimes but other times its starting to tick you off and those vibes are being sent to the dog? 
correct me if i am wrong


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## tituscollins (May 23, 2014)

Wow!! I'm obviously new to this forum. I've been looking for weeks for a responses to this question on my pages and just now found it. I clicked off as a new member and went on as a guest to see if I could see the picture I uploaded. It won't show up. Then I found all of these wonderful responses. Thank you for being so helpful!!
The submissive urination is getting a lot better. We are ignoring, using calm body language. We can tell when he's starting to get nervous and we've started to work through it with even more positive motivation. Like "oh, boy  look at that"...."lets  go". He has even gotten a lot more affectionate with my husband. He still piddles...usually, exactly one week apart from each other. As soon as I say, "it's been a week since he peed"....then he pees that day. I am not going to say that this week.
We've also been running him a lot more. We bought an awesome ball thrower and he loves it. We keep them launched and he's learning to bring them back with us enticing him with a tug a war rope in one hand and a ball thrower in the other. I think it's helping to build his confidence.
He is a wonderful work in progress and so are we. We are learning so very much training this gsd. The smartest breed we've ever owned. In 25 years, we've had two Akitas, two chows (all passed) and currently one great Pyrenees. I think the shepherd is by far our favorite and we truly have loved the others well. 
To one question that was asked. Yes, we are staying calm when he pees, but everyone once in a while it gets frustrating...especially, the night I posted this post. It is getting better though.
How in the world do I post a picture of this beautiful Sable boy?? My pic size says 100x79, so it shouldn't be too big.
Thank you all very much!!


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## misslesleedavis1 (Dec 5, 2013)

He is lucky to have a family that takes a calm approach rather then yelling at him.
If your husband scolded him once and he could not bounce back from that I would focus some major attention on nothing but confidence building. Have you watched him in these social situations? Is he nervous at all, be careful not to overwhelm him. Just set him up for totally positive happy situations and once you are confident he is improving start pushing the boundaries a bit.


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## Katerlena (May 30, 2008)

My GSD did this when I first rescued her. Everything I read about Submissive Urination was ignore and be calm and eventually the behavior stopped. She was lacking confidence too (we worked on that with going to obedience classes and using Nothing In Life is Free technique) - sounds like things are working well for you guys too keep up good work!


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## tituscollins (May 23, 2014)

We use the nothing in life is free technique too. He sits and waits before eating, waits to go through doors or stairs. He does great at these tasks. He will go to the mud room door, stop and circle back around until we go through and tell him "okay".
He does great in social situations away from the house...out in public. It's inside the house where his fear shows. We read from another testimony on here that you shouldn't allow them to take flight and leave the room when someone comes into the house. This makes sense and I can see where it would set up habits to flee. So, we're encouraging him to stay and be social with the guests. He is getting better and making baby steps. 
We're going to get into another obedience class and then agility. He has very high prey drive, so this should definitely boost his confidence. We have three farm cats that love to tease him while we're out training. It is quite the challenge. I watched some great videos at k9-1 and I loved her very calm techniques.
Today's challenges were Fall leaves whipping through the yard, flag whipping on the pole and cats bounding about. If we accomplish continual obedience through all of this, we will have a well trained dog.
Working, playing and loving....
Enjoy your day!!


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