Urinating upon greeting people? A simple “hello” with a tail wag would suffice!

  Posted on June 19, 2012  by Joy of Living  No comments

Party Marty here with quite the canine dilemma. It seems our Yorkie-Poo friend Bolt, the alpha dog at home to his Wheaten Terrier counterpart, has this habit of urinating whenever guests stop by the home. He gets so excited to greet them and in doing so, tends to pee on their feet or somewhere closeby. Of course, Bolt’s owners become embarrassed and continue to apologize. So, we went to dogster.com to see what to do about this mess. (Thank goodness we cats do not engage in such sophomoric behavior!)

While such behavior is not necessarily normal, we were relieved (no pun intended!) to discover it’s not abnormal, either. When two dogs meet and one pees, that is a sign of submission. This signals that there is no threat to the dominant dog. Puppies are usually quite skilled at this!

As such, a submissive dog might urinate as a sign of respect. He simply wants a friendly encounter free of trouble. When they do this with humans, however, it can be a problem. Humans are generally not impressed with such actions.

One way to address this issue is to ask guests and unfamiliar people to just ignore the dog for a few minutes and once the dog has calmed down, he or she can be greeted calmly.

Most dogs will outgrow this submissive urination if you are patient and persistent. However, there are rare instances where such an act can signal a bladder infection, urine chemical imbalances, hormonally-mediated incontinence and certain anatomical irregularities. If you are concerned, it is advised you seek a veterinarian’s advice.

While Bolt does not appear to be suffering from any medical conditions related to his “so happy to meet you” approach, he does need to work on his greeting a bit more. He obviously thinks it’s cute. We prefer to think otherwise. How about a friendly tail wag and a good lick to the hand?