Marking in the house is frustrating. It can feel like a constant battle of cleaning carpets, washing household items, and the insidious smell of pee that you can’t quite place the origin of. It can be incredibly disheartening and frankly feel personal when your dog is marking in the home.
Luckily, marking can be fixed fairly quickly, but it first takes the nuance of identifying that what you’re really seeing is marking.
This is because the way we treat marking is very different from the way we tackle all other housetraining problems. Because the cause and intent is different between the two, the necessary training to stop your dog from marking in the house is also going to have to take a different approach in order to work.
What is the difference between a dog marking and peeing?
Marking is a territorial behavior. It signifies the presence of one dog to others within a certain space, and relays information about the dog to other dogs. Marking is for communication, and is a natural behavior that most dogs are going to be inclined to do.
Regular peeing, on the other hand, is entirely about elimination. It’s the “got to go” aspect of urination that happens when a dog’s bladder is getting full. Elimination is not territorial in nature and can hardly even be described as a “behavior” because dogs often do not have the same level of choice in the matter; they either have been holding it longer than they know how, or do not yet understand what you do want of them.
I write all about housetraining and how to pee-proof your dog in my article, How to Potty Train Any Dog.
The difference between marking and regular urination is the intent. In one, a dog is making a choice to mark in a certain area despite not needing to go. In other household messes, the dog is not really “choosing” to eliminate in all fairness; it is either happening as a natural bodily function, or the dog has held it to the point of discomfort and can’t reasonably continue to do so.
How can you tell the difference between pee and marking?
So, how can you tell if a dog is marking?
It can be difficult to tell the difference, but there a few key signs as to which one your dog is doing.
If your dog is marking, urine will be in small bursts. Males may lift their leg (depending on age) and release a small amount of urine in small spurts. Females will squat and usually release a very small puddle before getting up and moving away.
Elimination, on the other hand, will have a steadier stream and a larger quantity. When a male dog is marking, for instance, it is easy to see his control over the amount because the stream will come in small waves or spurts. If that same dog is urinating to eliminate, the stream will be steady and the amount will be much more than if he were just marking.
Additionally, marking is usually a pattern of behavior and rarely an isolated event. Dogs that like to mark will like to mark a lot. This means that if you dog has just an occasional accident, it is likely just that: an accident. But if your dog is peeing around the house, and especially on objects, very frequently, that is another indicator that you might be looking at marking.
If your dog is not yet housetrained, it is fair to assume for the time being that your dog is eliminating, and needs more guidance with reward-based training before considering that they are intentionally marking.
Understand, either way, that dogs do not mark maliciously. Marking is a territorial behavior, but is not necessarily meant to claim territory away from you or to get revenge on you for something you did earlier that day.
I write about intent behind accidents and marking in my article, Why Does My Dog Revenge Pee?
How do you stop a dog from marking inside the house?
I always tell my clients to not try to correct a dog for eliminating during the housetraining process. However, with marking, I tend to sing a different tune.
If I am sure like I am sure like I am sure that a dog is marking, not eliminating, I will incorporate corrections into the equation because we are looking to decrease a self-rewarding behavior.
Set Your Dog Up For Success
First, though, make sure you are managing your environment well enough that you are providing your dog with enough support that you are not needlessly correcting them, if at all possible.
Make sure that your dog is not left roaming unsupervised during the training process, as they may be able to mark in the house when your back is turned. Utilize your crate to make sure you can follow through on every instance the behavior appears.
If you have the place command already, utilize that, as well. I often tell my clients that a dog who is focusing on place or relaxing quietly in place is a dog that is not off getting into unwanted nonsense while you’re busy.
Make sure your dog is already housetrained (for elimination), so that they have the baseline context of outside being for doing their business. Having this done before doing any training specifically for marking will make the protocol below easier to figure out for your dog.
Lastly, make sure that after every instance of your dog marking in the house that you are cleaning the mess appropriately. As I talk about in my article, How to Deal With Accidents While Potty Training Your Dog, cleaning up messes with an enzymatic formula will help eliminate odors and keep your dog from wanting to go potty or mark in the same place again. In marking, this is especially helpful.
Reward for Marking Outside
You may think that you are done having to treat your dog for pottying outside, but if your dog is marking in the house, continuing to reward outside elimination absolutely helps with the process.
Providing the context that marking is okay, just not in the house, will help give your dog the information that housetraining applies to marking, and that the house is off-limits. Rewarding your dog for marking outside locations can also help set the scene for their understanding when we refuse to reward for inside marking.
Remember that marking is a natural behavior, and we are asking our dogs to refrain from doing so in a certain context; allowing a dog to mark in specific situations, like during a break on a walk or in the back yard can give an outlet for that natural behavior while also saving your shoes and drapes from the smell of pee.
Because we are stopping an unwanted behavior, this is not necessary, but it is definitely helpful. It’s always a good idea to consider the alternative behavior you’d like to see in your dog when reducing unwanted behaviors, and reward for that for even quicker results (and a happy dog).
How to Correct Marking in the House
Your dog is crated or confined when you can’t supervise them, you’re cleaning up efficiently after every mess, and you are rewarding them whenever you can for outside marking. After the scene is set, you can safely apply a correction to the behavior.
For most behaviors, I will usually use one of two corrections: a small leash pop, or a low-level stim on an ecollar.
The reason I prefer these two methods is because they allow for a lot of flexibility in correction intensity. You can leash pop very softly, or more firmly. And you can set a quality remote collar to a very low level, or to a level that is much higher and becomes uncomfortable.
However, I have also used pet correctors/pet convincers (compressed air) effectively to stop marking in the house. Pet correctors really have a single level of correction, but are often startling enough to reduce the behavior, as well.
I talk about how I use corrections in my article, The Ten Commandments of Dog Training Corrections, where I go over how different levels of correction are helpful for different intensities of behavior.
In marking, low levels are usually enough. What we want to do is interrupt the behavior of marking as soon as it begins, and make that behavior a little less desirable.
Regardless of which method of correction you choose, time that correction appropriately. As soon as the dog squats down or lifts the leg, that is the perfect time to interrupt with a correction.
During the correction, your dog may still urinate slightly; this is a normal reaction to being startled while in the act. Clean it up matter-of-factly, knowing that you’re already less likely to see this behavior again.
After stopping your dog from marking, it’s a good idea at first to then bring your dog to the yard (if you have one) for a little extra context. If they “go” outside, whether it be for marking or elimination, reward as usual to reinforce that outside is okay.
In this process, one correction is often enough to stop or drastically reduce the behavior. Remember to not allow a window for your dog to sneak off and mark when they’re not supervised, as this will diminish the effectiveness of the corrected occurrences. Marking is a satisfying natural behavior for the dog, and has its own reward value, so if you allow your dog to mark when you’re not looking during this process, the reward of marking inside can counter the training process.
If you do see any marking again, repeat the process. After a couple consistent corrections, your dog should understand that marking inside is not permitted, and should do so only in the areas that we’ve established are okay through reward.
