I love my dog, 6 years old, about 50 lbs. he’s sweet and wonderful. But. He insists on going outside 4-5 times a day to go pee because he never goes all the way to empty his bladder. He’ll insist on finding a ‘good’ smelling area and will wet there, quit, and even if there is a block longer on our walk he’ll stay full until we get home only to insist on going back out a short while longer.
How do I deal with this? I’m a city apartment dweller and have to put on full winter gear and go outside with him so it’s becoming a frustration of mine.
There’s a dog training strategy where you out down water in a routine, rather than keep it always available. Constraining when water goes in helps constrain when it comes out.
Don’t just take their water: make sure to look up the details so you’re not just making the dog suffer
Edit: but that’s for dogs with a bladder issue
insists on going outside 4-5 times a day to go pee
Dude. That seems entirely normal - any creature has biological needs.
For my dog
- When we get up
- When/if I leave for work
- “After school” when the kids are around to play
- After dinner
- Before bed
It sucks to have to wander around in the cold with your dog, but that is how they get their stimulation. I feel your pain, it has been snowing a lot here, and I’ve been walking on packed ice and gross snow for the last week.
Keep being a wonderful dog owner! They love it, and they don’t live forever, so try to enjoy making them happy. Get some nice warm clothes, maybe a hot beverage, and pray for spring. It’ll be here before you know it!
He will never “pee it all”. They hold onto some of it as they use it as a messaging system. They’re basically doing the dog version of checking their text messages and need some to reply. That’s why they like those good smelling spots. You can take him out frequently but also place a little more space between trips to get him used to a more normal schedule. Also a vet wellness check could help.
This, they always can urinate more. Ops doggo just likes to go on walks with them.
My little girl demands to walk 2 or 3 times in the morning. I have a flexible enough job that I can take a 15 minute break and walk her. But sometimes I have to tell her she is SOL and has to wait.
I’ve let her go as long as 12 hours without a walk and she does fine as well. Dogs are resilient creatures.
How many times a day do you personally go pee? Is 4-5 times really that excessive? I think that’s probably on the low end of what I normally do. I wouldn’t expect my dog to go much less than that, especially since there’s often a pretty long stretch when we’re at work where she doesn’t get to go out.
Walking and taking your dog out to pee is part of what you signed up for when you got a dog, and you need to do that a few times a day.
On top of just the basic biological needs to pee and for exercise, you also need to consider the sort of social aspect of dogs marking their territory. That’s part of being a dog.
Honestly at 6 years old he may even start needing to go more. Just like humans can get incontinent with age, so can dogs, and your boy is approaching or already well into middle age depending on his breed. And he’s probably pretty set in his ways at this point, he’s used to going out 4 or 5 times a day to pee, it’s going to be an uphill battle training that out of him. Not impossible, but difficult.
I take my girl out a minimum of 4 times a day, and if the weather’s nice and we’re not busy it might be 2 or 3 times that many, some of those might just be a quick potty break and not a full walk, but no matter how many times I can pretty much guarantee that every time she goes outside she’s going to pee.
I suggest investing in some warm slip-on shoes and a jacket that you keep by the door with his leash, and maybe make your walks longer when you do go out.
Be the example. After a week or three he’ll catch on.
Lol
That could actually works
Your attitude is horrible. Starting a post with “I love my dog (…), but” shows your true colors.
Have you ever drank a bunch of water and taken a good piss only to realize you have to pee again a short time later? And I’m absolutely not advocating restricting water access.
You got a dog. Now take responsibility for providing exercise and appropriate elimination opportunities.
If this is a new behaviour, I’d talk to a vet to make sure there are no health issues.
If there are no new health issues, and he never did this before, then you’ve inadvertently trained him to this new behavior (probably by going out whenever). It happens easily, because we don’t realize we’re establishing a new routine.
Talk to your vet, besides the health angle, they probably have advice on undoing the behaviour.
Not new, thankfully, I’m just getting more annoyed because it’s like 12f outside
4-5 times a day sounds normal to me. That’s about how many times i have to let my parent’s dogs out when dogsitting.
follow other dog walkers. or the routes they take. most male dogs will want to pee anywhere another dog peed.
Take him to the same place every day, no stops, no sniffing, walk to the potty spot, do the potty, walk back home. Worked for my old dog a while back when we moved from having a hard to having no yard.
4-5 times a day is very normal. And it also sounds like he needs longer walks. Not sure what breed you have but dogs should ideally have around 30-50 minute walks 4-5 times a day. As for the smelling areas, they’re looking for territory marking spots. Walks are like the news for dogs. They’ll smell around finding what other dogs have been there and leave marks of their own.
Your dog’s behavior is very typical, and it doesn’t sound like the dog needs to change, but rather that it does need more walks. If you are a very busy person, I’d suggest occasionally hiring a dogwalker. The winter cold is unfortunately just something that comes with having dogs.
