Puppy Excitement!

[kelly943 0]

I have two questions today.

1) When my dog sees someone new or a new dog, she gets really excited and pees a little. Is this just normal behavior for a puppy and they will grow out of it? I hope so, it's a mess! hehe

2) When she sees a someone new or a new dog, she gets into this playful mood with her tail wagging BUT she barks and growls at them. To me, i don't know what this means. I don't know if she's just really excited to play or she's scared..I dont know. Her tail is wagging like crazy but she's barking and growling at them. This intimidates some of my guests and other dogs at first..

What i currently do is everytime she barks or growl at things, i remove her from the room for a minute and brings her back..she still barks..and i just repeat this process. Again, is this normal for a puppy? LOL my friend's puppies don't do this.

[Carolina Girl 2]

My Daisy piddles when she gets excited, meets people, gets her leash put on, and when people baby talk her. She is almost 5. When she gets excited and piddles, she also swishes her tail around and gets it in the pee! That is the one thing that I would change about her. People keep telling me she will grow out of it, I'm still waiting!

[mr.coffee 364]

As far as the peeing, I think some grow out of it, but there's some conditioning involved as well. My father-in-law's Schnauzer, Pepper, would pee every time we would arrive to visit; I'm not sure how old she was, but she was no pup, she did this her whole life. Pepper was a very mild-mannered girl though, always thrilled to see us, and she would get upset if you so much as raised your voice.

Most of what I've read seems to indicate that you want to neither praise nor scold a dog with submissive/excitement urination issues, but rather focus on building the dog's confidence, for example through some basic obedience training, and reduce excitement levels through exposure and controlling the situation. When they do dribble, it is best just to ignore it, rather than re-enforce it or exacerbate it. If you search 'excitement urination' or 'submissive urination,' there's quite a lot of articles out there on the subject.

-m

[kelly943 0]

Oh okay! Yeah i normally ignore it just because i don't know she did it until she walks away or if i have some wetness on my shirt when im holding her..gross i know haha Hopefully she'll grow out of it.

How about the barking and growling issue when she sees a new dog. It's clearly out of excitement but is this normal? Any advice on this?

[mileysmom 2]

Miley barks when she sees people.... anyone.

Outside or inside... but some of it is excitement and some is gaurding.

if they are outside, and she doesnt know them personally, shes protecting her property. If she knows them and they are outside its a different bark, and when they come close to her, she just gets excited and wants them to pet her.

same as inside too i guess.

She still tinkles a little too when she sees someone she REALLY wants to see.. although it has slowed down A LOT.

[Carolina Girl 2]

Both of mine bark when they see new people and dogs. I think it's normal to an extent. We are working witha trainer because Ozzy takes this a little too far.

[kelly943 0]

do your babies bark with their tail wagging?

[xr4man 7]

yeah, hunter wags his tail and barks alot when he sees people and dogs. whether they are new or not. my old beagle ken, used to pee a bit when he was excited to see people, but he grew out of it. hunter doesn't do that. but he does bark alot and wag his tail.

[loewenthal.anna 4]

The peeing sounds submissive (which would fit for the tail wagging/growl thing too) in which case she will grow out of it so long as you get her enough socialization that she can gain some confidence in the presence of new people/dogs. If she's still a puppy you have plenty of time to work on it, try having your guests ignore her at first so she can greet them on her terms, sometimes submissive dogs just want to feel in control of the attention, then they're fine.

As I mentioned above I think the tail wagging thing is also probably submissive/nervous behavior. While most of us know general tail wagging as a friendly gesture, dogs use their tails to indicate a whole slew of emotions. My mastiff for instance, will hold her tail straight up when she's threatened by something, and will tick it slowly when she's irritated (say, when a dog gets in her face and she's NOT threatened, but wants them gone) . . . how fast is her tail moving? Is she holding it up or is it wagging low, or even between her legs?

Again I'd say socialization could help here, sounds like your baby may just be unsure of how to react to novel things and so she's a little insecure about confronting them.

here's a link on submissive urination with a bunch of other links at the bottom of the page:

submissive urination

And here is one on dog body language:

http://www.pawsacrossamerica.com/interpret.html

[Chai 0]

You might want to take your pup to the vet and make sure there is not a Urinary Tract infection, leaking, excessive peeing etc is a sign of that... Once you have ensured that the issue is not medical then I would have to support the people who are saying most of this is submissive. The barking (to a point) is what they are bred to do. It should be alright as long as they are properly socialized and trained to stop after you acknowledge the initial alert.

One of the best ways to deal with submissive peeing is to help your dog gain some confidence. Do obedience classes, puppy kindergarten, and other activities that not only help socialize your dog.. but also teach both of you what is acceptable behavior around other dogs and humans.

Carrie

[silverleaf 0]

Not sure about the growing /barking but Shelby peed whenever she saw anyone (and I mean ANYONE) for about a year after we got her. Very annoying but she outgrew it.

[kelly943 0]

thanks for the advice! she wags her tail very fast and kinda jumps on them and when she moves away, i'll see her pee..i don't think she has a urinary problem because she pees fine on her pad and everything.

LOL today, she went face to face with a pitbull...and she barked and growled and then she lifted her paw to play with her and then the pitbull is also a playful dog that did the same but she was so big, it made me worry that she would slap the hell out of her..haha. so they can only play behind a fence now..the pitbull is too friendly and does not know her strength. lol .