Help! My Pug Keeps Peeing On My Bed!
Here is an email I received from one of my readers. Since I get this question quite often, I decided to just answer it here on my website so that others can see it.
First I want to let you know that I really appreciate all the information on your website. Since this is our first dog, my husband and I are both very grateful for all your help. We ourselves are happy owners of our baby girl Bella, my 11-month old female Pug. So far she has been nothing but joy to us. We did start obedience training early just like you suggested and so far it’s been going quite well.
The only issues that we have been having with her is that she pees on my bed. It happened twice now. She is housetrained, or at least we thought she was. She does all her business outside, except the two incidents. The first time I let her get on the bed with me while I was reading something. She laid with me for a while and then she stood up and started peeing! She did it right in front of me. I quickly picked her up and put her on the floor while shouting NO. Then I put her back in her crate for the rest of the night. I didn’t think much of this, thinking it was an accident. She continued to do her doggy business outside from then on.
That was until last night. Again, I let her on my bed while I was reading. Then I left to get a quick snack and when I came back she was standing with her head down looking very guilty. I immediately went to check my bed and sure enough it was soaked. So again I put her in the crate.
Like I said, she is a wonderful girl when it comes to everything else but I can’t have her peeing indoors. Before she was housetrained, she would pee and poop everywhere. Even ruined one of our rugs. However, we got her under control and she stopped. At least that’s what we thought. No we aren’t sure what to do with her. Why does she do it? Someone suggested that she is marking her territory, but I thought only male dogs do that. I was also told that spaying her could help. Is that true?
Thanks,
Lindsay
Answer
Hey Lindsay,
I’m glad that you find my content useful, which is the exact reason for me making it in the first place. As to helping you solve your issue, let me ask the most obvious question first: Are you walking her often enough? Did she soil your bed at around the same time of day? If so maybe she needs another walk squeezed in somewhere around that time.
The second possible cause for this could be a medical problem. Dogs can have certain bladder problems and urinary tract infections that would make it painful for them to “hold it in” so they just go. Since it only happened twice, I can’t say it’s that for sure but if it happens again, I would definitely get it checked out.
To answer your question whether female dogs mark their territory – yes, they do. However, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. Spaying your Pug could help if it’s the problem in a very small way, but I doubt that it is. If it’s not a medical issue and she gets outside often enough, then it could be that she is nervous or anxious.
You mentioned it’s your bed, she could be peeing there to mask her scent with yours. Younger dogs do that when they are frightened. Since they consider you the caretaker, they feel safer knowing that predators won’t find their scent if it’s masked in yours. It’s rare, but it happens and is usually after something scary happens to them. Has anything frightened recently? Does she show fearful body language?
Whatever the case may be, I would still advise you to continue with good housebreaking practice of rewarding her when she goes outside. To learn more about it, check out my “House training a Pug” page. Also, if she does have this type of an accident again, take her outside immediately. Saying “NO” to her is a good idea, but you have to follow up with what you want her to do instead – and that is to go outside.
In the meantime, I suggest you keep her off all your furniture until she is better house trained.
Wish you best of luck,
Colleen
Do you have any suggestions or comments for Lindsay? Feel free to leave them in the comments below!
NEXT: House-training a Pug
I am unsure how old this query is but if it’s recent or if Lindsay is still facing the issue, I’d like your share my experience.
My lil girl is now 10 months old. I had a similar issue. I walk her thrice a day, have house trained her so she knows that she is allowed to pee only during walks or when she follows me to the washroom when I go there to do my business. BUT when I started taking her to bed, she would pee on the bed. No amount of “Bad Minnie/ No Minnie/ Bad Pee” helped me.
One thing I realised quickly was that she is prone to pee in places where she gets the scent of her own pee. So i bought new mattress protectors and replaced all the old ones (even though i used to wash them regularly).
Minnie understands or had been trained a little to understand when I tell her “this is momma’s stuff, leave it” “this is Minnie’s bed, go to Minnie’s bed”.
So after changing the mattress protector and sheets, the first time I took her to bed, I told her very strictly “this is Momma’s bed, NO PEE”. I reiterated “Minnie pee, NO momma bed”. Funnily this worked! Its been a month now since she has not peed on the bed.
I am assuming that this worked for me because I drew a line with her on who owns what and if she wants to use or be on something that belongs to me (Momma) then she has to follow Momma’s rules. And fortunately she does love sleeping with me, and not in her crate. I am not in favor of the things certain trainers or bloggers say about being the alpha dog or always having an upper hand on your dog about ownership of things because pugs are different from other dogs (personality wise). But funnily telling her or making her understand that it is my stuff and my stuff is off limits actually worked.
I don’t know whether she used to pee on the bed to mark her territory/ ownership or just because its a new comfy place for her but this method worked for me. So if your pug does not seem to have any medical issues relating to her bladder and is house trained, then I would suggest training her to understand what is yours and what is hers, and then ensuring that she knows the rules for using your stuff.
I know my experience is a bit bizarre because a lot of people don’t believe that dogs can understand words or our language but it worked for me 🙂