Why Your Dog Pees When People Come Over (and How to Stop It)

why does my dog pee when people visit

Just when you think your dog is properly housetrained, the doorbell rings and a visitor comes through the door. Suddenly, all bets are off! But why, after all you diligence and hard work, is your dog suddenly peeing in the house again?

If your dog pees when someone comes to the door even though they’re already house trained, this is because of something called excitement urination. When a person comes to visit, this prompts an excitement response, and even dogs who have not had an accident in months can forget about everything except their excitement — and that includes their bladder control.

As we discuss in other articles on the topic of potty training dogs, ultimately the goal is to teach our dogs to be more aware of their elimination, build control over it, and create associations with the proper time and place for doing their business.

For reference, here are a few helpful articles we’ve already put together to help with the overall housetraining process:

How to Potty Train Any Dog

How Long Does It Take to Potty Train Your Dog?

How to Deal With Accidents While Potty Training Your Dog

How to Train Your Dog to Potty on Command

Potty Training Puppies vs. Adult Dogs

How to Stop a Dog from Eliminating in the Crate

Are Pee Pads a Good Idea? (and 5 awesome alternatives)

Why Does My Dog Revenge Pee?

How to Stop Dog Marking in the House

At Lugaru K9 Training, we do this in a reward-based fashion, because outside of marking (a separate behavior entirely) dogs usually do not understand what they are doing, why it is undesirable, or often even that they are doing it at all.

The latter is especially the case when it comes to excitement peeing, and it is why your dog seems to lose control when visitors come to call. To put it simply, your dog’s potty training “checks out” because something is so exciting that they forget themselves.

Do Dogs Grow Out of Excitement Peeing?

The good news is that most dogs will grow out of excitement peeing, usually completely with continued practice but at least to some degree. Excitement peeing is most common in younger dogs who are still refining their ability to “hold it.”

As a dog trainer, I usually see excitement urination issues in dogs younger than one year, who are still very energetic and haven’t fully developed mentally. Dogs that have not been provided impulse control exercises, exposure, and decent structure in their lives are also solid candidates because they are not experiencing excitement and practicing how to still control themselves.

Sometimes you do have a dog that particularly struggles with excitement peeing, even into adulthood. This is a lot less common than it is in younger dogs, but does happen sometimes.

When faced with stubborn cases, some dog owners will seek veterinary assistance regarding this issue, but there are also things you can do from a behavioral and training standpoint!

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How Do I Stop My Dog From Peeing When People Visit?

Teaching your dog to stop peeing when people come to visit is ultimately a matter of increasing your dog’s ability to deal with excitement. Here are some things you can do that can help build this ability in your dog, and some ways that you can manage situations that will arise so that you have fewer messes on social occasions.

Introduce Impulse Control

Impulse control is the name of the game. If your dog “forgets themselves” less often, your dog will have fewer accidents due to excitement urination.

Impulse control exercises are one of our favorite things to train because they are so beneficial in so many areas of a dog’s (and a dog owner’s) life. Doing these exercises may not seem like potty training, or even like they have anything to do with the problem at hand. But take it from me, teaching a dog to take things a little slower and think before they act transfers like a dream into many a helpful situation — peeing on visitors included.

Here are some helpful impulse control exercises you can do throughout your dog’s day to teach them to self-regulate their excitement, and ultimately have fewer excitement-related accidents.

  • Waiting in the crate: When releasing your dog from the crate, have them wait and sit. Open the crate door slightly. If your dog stands up to try to push out, close the door and tell them to sit again. It is ok if your dog bumps into the crate door — as long as you are not slamming it forcefully, your dog will be perfectly fine. Repeat this process until your dog catches on and pauses in a sit while you open the door. Give them a release word like “break,” or “free,” and allow them to exit the crate.
  • Waiting for food: In a similar process, prepare your dog’s meal and bring it to the place where they typically eat. Begin to lower the bowl; if your dog tries to stick their face in before the bowl is on the floor, raise it back up away from them. Lower it and raise it again depending on how polite or not your dog is being, and give them their release word to eat when you finally lower it to the floor. This can be refined into having your dog wait longer, even with the food on the floor, by removing the bowl to the beginning if your dog tries to eat before the release word. Progress them as they get better at waiting!

Make It Normal

If your dog’s excitement (and excitement peeing) is specifically triggered by people coming to visit, use this knowledge to your advantage in your training!

Stage doorbell rings, and have it result in nothing happening for your dog. Stage people coming in regularly, ideally while your dog works on those impulse control exercises. When people come in, have them ignore your dog and even give them a command to sit and settle down before getting attention or a proper greeting — much like the above listed impulse control exercises.

Have people come over in varied and unexciting ways, and check your dog’s progress as they adjust to this becoming a normal occurrence. Did they pee fewer times after a few repetitions? Or maybe a little less? Were they able to control themselves, respond to known commands and instructions, and settle down a little quicker? It’s a good idea to keep track of these things so we don’t forget the progress made as we work on this.

Over time, people coming over will just become…less exciting, and less worthy of excitement pee.

Structure Your Dog’s Life

Giving your dog solid rules and boundaries is one of the ways to help them learn to be mindful about excitement. You could also call this an extension of impulse control, or vice versa, but it really is more about what are the normal expectations for your dog.

Does your dog rush the door whenever they please, or are they trained to go to a place when the doorbell rings? Are they crate trained, so they can be easily managed if you don’t have the means to manage them more hands-on when they get excited? Do they have a solid place command, and can they keep it under distraction?

Giving your dog a set of rules helps them get clear on the expectation, and can actually cut down on frustration for both of you.

Plus, if your dog knows exactly what to do when the doorbell rings or when friends come in, they are not amping themselves up, running around and peeing from excitement!

Management Tips

The reality of life is that you can’t always be on top of your dogs. Something is going to come up, and you want to make sure you know what to do so your training efforts don’t go out the window. Here are some tips for those moments!

  • Crate training is a lifesaver for hectic moments. Plus, the crate can be a helpful tool in having your dog calm down before coming to meet your guests.
  • Gates can also help, if the layout of your house allows it, to section off the door so that you can greet guests while your dog deals with their excitement with you out of the splash zone. You can also use this as an impulse control exercise to allow your dog to calm down before you and your guest come to join them.
  • Wraps and doggy diapers. I wouldn’t rely on them, but in a pinch you can wrap your dog to avoid making a mess while handling other business.

You can use these tips in conjunction with other training efforts, to compliment each other as you work towards your goal! Remember that with some work, excitement peeing doesn’t have to be forever!

Author: Kimberlee Tolentino

Kimee has worked hands-on with dogs for over ten years, and today serves the role of head trainer and owner at Lugaru K9 Training in Port Orchard, Washington. Kimee has been a shelter volunteer, a dog walker, dog behavior intern, a dog trainer, and now specializes in behavior modification for pet dogs.