Puppy being weird, any advice please?

Acoshla

Hiya,

We've a 9 month old labrador/collie cross, female, spayed, very clever dog ie takes training really easily, knows her rules etc. Having a bit of a problem, would love some advice :(This is long so bear with me please, I want to give all the relevant info.

She's a nervous pee-er, pees when she's excited, scared etc, it's normally a tiny amount, we know this is probably just a puppy thing and she'll grow out of it, so for the last few months our approach has been to get her excited outside the house before she comes in, that way at least she pees outside. Other than this she's very well trained with regards to peeing and pooing, knows to go outside and to let us know so its never normally an issue.

For the past week she's been refusing to go into the hall of our house, and when finally coaxed in she point blank refuses to go outside, and the same with coming in the front door from outside. She will just lie as flat to the ground as possible and stare at us, no amount of reassurance or treats will do it. Then she will inevitably roll on her back and start peeing.

Now, I'd say it is one of two things. First, we are in the middle of painting the hall, so could it be the smell of the paint? I doubt that this is causing it but if it is, will she just get used to it? If it's not that than could this next incident have started it?

Friends were over last week, she knows them and was grand, playing, getting rubs, happy out. Then out of nowhere she walked to the centre of the sitting room, sat down and peed everywhere. It was really deliberate, not a nervous thing. She's never done this, when we got her when she was 2 months she would sniff a corner and do it sneakily, this was completely different. We did what we normally do when she's very bold, said a firm "No" and "Out", my boyfriend left the room to put her outside for a while, she followed him because she knows this routine, then next thing she ran back in, jumped onto couch where our friends were and when he picked her up to bring her out she just peed and peed and peed :mad:

When we got her outside and put her collar on (which she knows means she'll be outside for a while) she kept on peeing, then rolled over, still peeing, and that was the start of it all.

Since then anytime we try to go from the kitchen to the hall, hall to outside or from outside back to hall she just won't move, and does the hurt dog face when we literally have not gone near her. As I said she is a clever dog and I know that she knows we were appalled by what she did but my God, she's been doing it nearly a week now! If it's not the paint and it's this incident causing it, any advice on what to do? It's so frustrating, annoying and upsetting to see her cowering on the ground and we can't do anything to help her

Sigma Force

There could be another reason for the hall thing, someone may have frightened her when she was in there even if they didn't mean to she sounds like she picks up on the smallest things and isn't always able to understand human bodylanguage if that makes any sense.

One thing I noticed with our collie when we origionally got her (she was around 3 yrs old and didn't know her history) was if you went to even pet her she would cower and pee and if you fussed over her she would pee more. Because she has that feel sorry for me face people would approach her with a sad tone of voice and be all like poor dog and that would actually set her off peeing even more.

Even when you went to approach her to pet her she would get in position to pee. So what I did (which was hard to do when she puts on the sad collie face) was if I saw she was starting to go into that position I would stop and just turn away and go off and do something else. Not making a big fuss of her and gave her a little space as well, in the mean time I started clicker training her having so she started associating me approaching her and asking her to sit etc. with a treat and it kind of distracted her from peeing.

I think trying to get the dog excited outside won't help because she might just associate getting excited with peeing wether she is indoors or outdoors.
Instead just say in a happy short tone, something like go for pee pees (or whatever word you use) or when you do catch her peeing outside just mention the word go for pee pees while she's doing it and then once she's done it praise her and play a little game of fetch.

Perhaps using wee wee pads in the house will also help, most shops and vets have them starting toilet training from square one again.

Also a proffesional dog behaviourist that uses humane methods of training might be able to help as well.

Our collie still pees the odd time in and out of the house it's 6 years on and although she does it very occasionally she has hugely improved from the cowering pooch she once was.

Even now if I walked up to her and went awww the poor doggy (you have to imagine the tone lol) she would at least sit if not pee a little.
Nowdays she's very good and has even held on for 12 hours straight over night. The minute she goes out in the garden in the morning she will pee and then a few mins later do her poops I think the routine helps too. Keeping an insecure dog in a routine really helps them.

So I think avoid any babying ignore the unwanted behaviour and reward the wanted behaviour. Hope this helps sorry for the long post. Just I feel so sorry for dogs when they are like that and even more sorry for the owners, because our collie is so submissive at times people think we're big meanies to her and have no idea how much hard work has been put in to gaining her confidence over the past 6 years.

Acoshla

Thanks for such a great reply (makes my post look normal length too:D )

I don't think anyone else scared her or anything in the hall as it is mostly just us in the house and we'd always be with her if someone else was there too, but I think you could be right about the "face" and behaviour working in her favour with people, she spends a lot of time in her "granny's" house (boyfriend's mom's phrase, not mine!) and I think they are of the "aw look at the poor little puppy!" persuasion

Thanks for the tip about saying "time for pee" when she does it, I actually can't believe I didn't think of it already because that is how I taught her to do roll over and a few little tricks and stuff, never occurred to me to try it for correcting her behaviour.

Again, thanks for your help, here's a pic of the little angel/devil/culprit for your trouble