Adult dog urinating around the house? Here are the causes and what to do.
A puppy dog that urinates around the house is one thing: he doesn’t yet have the ability to completely hold his urine, and he’s not yet used to going to the toilet only on a walk… But what to do if the adult dog pees in the house? There are adult dogs that keep peeing in the house because they weren’t trained properly when they were young. But there are also adult dogs who, out of the blue or progressively, begin to urinate around the house. What are the causes? What to do?
Adult dog peeing in the house: causes
If an adult dog starts peeing in the house and has never done it before, there must be a problem somewhere. The logical thing to do is to rule out possible causes one after another. First of all, take your dog to the vet with a urine sample. The vet will begin to examine the dog and examine the urine. In case the visit and the examination indicate some particular problem (hormonal, metabolic…), we will proceed in that direction.
Problems such as renal insufficiency, pyometra, Cushing’s syndrome, glomerulonephritis, Addison’s disease, urinary incontinence (due to sterilization, neurological degenerative problems…), diabetes mellitus, diabetes insipidus, hypercalcemia, urinary stones or others could be the cause of this unusual urination.
Only when the vet has ruled out all possible physical illnesses can we move on to behavioral illnesses or educational problems. Stress, separation anxiety, territorial marking can lead to inappropriate urination.
Adult dog peeing in the house: what to do
First of all, don’t scold him: you would increase his anxiety or fix his behavior even more. Ignore him and clean when he doesn’t see you (perhaps with citrus-based products, usually unwelcome to dogs). Check how many walks he takes a day: if they are too few or too short, start by improving the management of the dog.
If it continues, go to the vet with a urine sample to begin a diagnostic workup.
