Sorry could not find another place to put this but. My three year old male GSD has peed in the house a few times lately, once right in front of my wife on mt stereo! I have a 14 month old Mal and my thoughts are he is sencing him maturing and is marking. What are your opinions and what should we try? Thanks in advance

Is he peeing, or marking? If he's marking it'll have a distinct odor to it.

In any event, if he's house trained he should neither pee or mark. Hmm. Could he have a bladder infection or some kind of urinary upset? Any problems holding it at night?

I'd say, immediately restrict his freedom. If he's loose in the house have him tethered to you with a leash. If you can't do that, he should be in a crate. A week or two of being tethered will usuaully clear up any housebreaking hiccups that a dog is having, but you have to be consistent. He needs to succeed, it's up to you.

definately marking. He has never gone in the house since we got him at 8 weeks. I have just started letting them be together some as they have to live together. Don't care if they are freinds but have to co exist. Puppy has challenged him recently. Both are working lines and both work. GSD has bad hip so he is out of sport work but still gets some bitework. Mal is traing for PSA.

sorry, im not trying to argue.
But I don't see how you can say that if an un-altered male dog marks in the house means he's not perfectly house-broken.

They are two distinctly different things.

Marking is not the same as urinating in the house. Sounds to me like possibly the dog is coming into his own and is trying to show some dominance to the other dog or even possibly your wife.

Mitch, does he ever do this in front of you? Or has he only ever done it in front of your wife?

If so, do you feel he views her as above him in pack structure, or does he sometime challenge her in other ways? That to me is a groundwork issue. Not a housebreaking issue.

No doubt I am top and she, my wife is second. evan my grand daughters rank higher than him. It is an issue with the puppy maturing and him trying to keep his status with him. The peeing on stereo happened the day after I had the puppy loose in that room playing with him. Puppy is almost always been crated but we are letting him loose in the house sometimes well only me and the older dogs are put up in my room. I have told my wife he is outside or in the crate whenever you can't watch him and he needs to be busted hard if does anyting in front of you.

We use belly bands on our rescue dogs that do this. Have you considered that?

I agree that marking and urinating aren't the same thing. Urinating and defecating aren't the same thing, yet they both fall under "being housebroken". With that said, I disagree with you about marking not being a part of housebreaking.

If a dog eliminates in the house with no medical condition or major reason to explain why it did so, and if it eliminates on more than one occassion, there are some housebreaking issues. To say that a dog that marks in the house is housebroken is a complete fallacy. You can say that he is partially housebroken. The fact of the matter is, I've worked with dogs that were not housebroken at all, who peed and marked in the house. In EVERY case, by treating marking the way I treated urination, the dog was broken of all three eliminations simultaneously.

If your definition of housebreaking includes a dog marking your furniture, that's fine, but I don't think most people will live like that, and I don't see it as a seperate training issue.

I absolutely see what you're saying about it being a groundwork issue, and I hope Mitch sees that and doesn't overlook or dismiss it out of hand, I think that statement has a lot of potential merit. But, whether it's a housebreaking or a groundwork issue, the tool to fix it (tethering) remains the same.

we'll have to agree to disagree then.
like i said im not arguing, just have a differing opinion.

And i agree, tethering is a part of the solution. Problem is though that chances are the dog won't try that particular act in front of the person he see's as pack leader. And it is hard to correct something when the dog won't perform the un-acceptable act when you are around. If the dog has gone 3 years with out incident of marking in the house and then starts it when another dog is introduced i think it could possibly be more of a groundwork issue. I don't think it means the dog isn't house-broken.
Again...NOT arguing with you David...lol.

 Quote: David Eagle

If your definition of housebreaking includes a dog marking your furniture, that's fine, but I don't think most people will live like that

That statement comes off a little hard...i never said it was acceptable nor would I allow it and I like MOST people would not live like that. My point was saying a blanket statement that it's a housebreaking issue.

anyway.....

Mitch...you never answered the question as to wether or not the dog marks in front of you?

I guess my next question would be...if the dog doesn't perform the act in front of him what does he do then?