Doggy Mythbusters 2 - Marking

Part 2 in my series of blog articles about common sayings in the dog world: myth or truth?

Marking – Why is your dog doing that?

As with the previous topic, marking is also often said to be related to dominance.

“That dog pees on everything, he is really very dominant”

Fortunately, we now know better. Dogs don’t dominate each other and the world through their pee 😉 In a future blog I’ll go even deeper into the dominance theory, but for now we’re going to delve into the function of the behavior ‘marking’.

The main function of this behavior is to spread information to other dogs in the vicinity, and that information can be anything. From ‘I’m a bitch and I’m in heat’ to ‘I’ve been here’. Quite simply, your dog leaves some pee-mail for other dogs to “read” with their noses later.

But another very important reason to mark is stress. Stress releases substances that trigger the body into action, resulting in all sorts of physical reactions, one of which is the discharge of anything superfluous, such as urine. Taking action is not very useful if your bladder is still full of pee! That ‘action’ can be anything: fleeing, or fighting, for example. Depending on the situation, your dog reacts to what is happening around him, but also to what is happening internally. The discharge of the urine is one such reaction.

Simply having a full bladder is another reason for peeing. I know, open target shot, but I’ll mention it for the sake of completeness. Particularly when urinating in the house, fingers are still sometimes pointed at the ‘dog being dominant’ explanation, while this is often simply a combination of a full bladder and not (yet) being potty trained, or an underlying medical problem. In the event of persistent peeing in the house, always visit the vet, especially if your dog was just potty trained before.