It can happen in a moment. You turned your back for a moment or got distracted, and now there’s a mess on your floor.
You let out a groan or stiffen up, and immediately look over to your dog. There they are, looking at you with wide eyes and head lowered.
Through the unpleasant smells and sights of their accident as you crouch on the floor, spray bottle and towels in hand, you can’t help but think about how you were gone for several hours earlier today, much to your dog’s chagrin. Was this mess intentional, to get back at your for leaving your dog home alone?
Do dogs pee in the house out of spite? Do they leave piles on your favorite slippers as a way to get revenge?
The truth of the matter is: no, dogs don’t seek revenge through their pee and poo. But it’s easy for us to think they do, and many reasons why dog owners come to this conclusion.
But My Dog Looks Guilty!
Sometimes clients tell me that their dog looks “guilty,” so they must “know what they did.” They see their dog with wide eyes, sinking head, and lowered body position as a look of feeling sorry, sad, or guilty.
I tend to disagree.
The look of “guilt” is actually more of a calming signal, in response to us looking upset. It’s a form of peace offering. I wonder if you looked at the mess with no reaction at all, if your dog would give you the same “guilty” look. My guess is that they would not.
Chances are, your dog is concerned or scared because you are pointing at something and yelling at them. They’re giving you guilty body language because you said their name with a certain tone, your body language is angry, or your voice has a certain quality. It’s fear, not guilt.
Don’t make the mistake of assigning human emotions to your dog. If we have not yet taught them that eliminating in the house is not acceptable, they will simply not know.
Do Dogs Pee Out of Spite?
Spite is another human concept. I highly doubt that dogs even have a concept of spite, much less that they go out of their way to do things as revenge for things we’ve done in the past.
Consider if dogs would even understand the concept of hurting us on purpose through the use of their pee or poop. Are dogs particularly repulsed by pee or poop? In my experience they are not. Dogs will happily take a nice deep inhale of some random dog’s poop left on the sidewalk, lick each other’s pee, and even eat their own feces from the day before.
I often have to do specific training for clients to get their dog to stop eating poop. Begrudgingly, I admit that stop-eating-poop training is way more common than you’d think.
That is how little dogs are repelled by feces and urine.
The idea that dogs could pick up on the fact that we humans are repulsed by excrement (which they often find so interesting), and then formulate a plot to inconvenience us out of spite is, when you look at it from a dog’s perspective, kind of silly.
If your dog loves to poop in your shoes or continuously drenches your hanging curtains, it’s most likely because that has become a preferred spot, or they are marking.
We do correct inappropriate marking because it is a choice, but it is impossible to discern definitively if a dog was marking without witnessing it happening. And again, correcting anything after the moment has already passed is never really helpful.
If you’ve just brought a dog home and are just beginning to introduce housetraining, it’s best to just go through the steps and resist any urge to correct or have any big reactions.
Do dogs pee when they are mad?
Dogs do not pee out of anger or when they get mad. Anger, or frustration, rather, in dogs can manifest in a whole host of unpleasant ways, but “anger pee” is not one of them.
Dogs do, however, often pee from just being overstimulated or excited, which can sometimes be mistaken for “anger” by humans. If a dog gets amped up from a scuffle with another resident dog or after you step in to keep them from chasing a cat, they can certainly end up excited enough that they forget to control their bladders.
Additionally, some dogs will “submissive pee,” which is in its own way an extension of excitement peeing. We see this in dogs that are very submissive or timid, and so certain stimuli can cause that dog to get swept up in that overstimulation. Much like excitement pee, submissive pee is a lack of body awareness that comes about from certain situations.
We do not typically correct this, because there’s really no way of knowing if the dog is even aware they’ve “messed themselves.” Additionally, you risk exacerbating the issue by correcting in these moments, because the dog very well may associate the correction with the stimuli that made them pee, and not the response of actually peeing.
The way you fix excitement pee, which many dog owners mistake for peeing out of anger, is to do confidence building in the dog, especially around stimuli that trigger the pee response. Through repetition and progression, the dog’s ability to “hold it” even when excited or stressed should become more and more reliable.
This is a reward-based training protocol that utilizes an approach called “counter conditioning.”
Do dogs pee for attention? And do puppies pee in the house to get attention?
On the other hand, I fully believe that dogs do sometimes pee to get attention. This is not true of all dogs, nor do I think it’s the norm, but it does happen from time to time.
If a puppy pees in the house to get attention, it is specifically because that puppy has received attention in the past for the behavior. A pattern of receiving attention over time for eliminating in the house can increase the behavior and put a damper on housetraining efforts, especially in young puppies.
Additionally, I find that some dogs will eliminate in the house because they have learned it will result in them going outside immediately after. This is, similarly, not true of all dogs, but these associations to occur every once in a while.
I find both of these situations to be uncommon, especially in my clients as I work with them specifically to design a routine that prevents this kind of thing from happening. You can read about this protocol in my article, How to Potty Train Any Dog.
How Do I Stop My Dog from Peeing to Get Attention?
If you think your dog is eliminating in the house in order to get attention (or to achieve some other desired result), it’s a good idea to take a look at your potty training practices with your dog to identify why your dog might be motivated to pee to get attention.
If your dog pees when you stop paying attention to them, a good first step is to be more consistent about crating or otherwise confining your dog when you can not keep an eye on their behaviors. Managing your dog in this way can help reduce accidents and keep you on top of your housetraining game.
Additionally, assess your reactions to your dog’s accidents. Do you make a big fuss and coo at them (rewarding the behavior)? Do you get upset, and your child runs over to “console” your dog (therein rewarding the behavior)? Do you immediately take them outside to play or otherwise grant them that attention (rewarding the behavior)?
Motivation is the name of the game; if your puppy is eliminating in the house for attention, it is specifically because attention has consistently been the consequence for peeing in the house.
When your dog makes a mess, approach the situation calmly. Bring your dog to their crate so you can clean up in peace. Reflect on if you made any other mistakes, like waiting too long to take them outside or leaving them unattended too long (making yourself unavailable to identify their signals). Then take note of the time your dog made their mess so you can adjust your going-outside schedule.
Remember to also consistently reward your dog for eliminating outside. Usually I use a “high value” treat — something stinky or extra tasty — but you can use whatever motivates your dog as an individual.
If you’re consistently rewarding your dog for outside potties and giving them no response for indoor accidents, you will surely see progress towards your goal of housetraining, even if you previously inadvertently rewarded their accidents before.
