The behavior your dog is driving you to wits' end with is known as urine marking behavior. It is the method dogs have for leaving their calling card, so to speak, or chemical scent mark, upon upright objects. Marking any upright surfaces both within and outside their homes, dogs identify their presence in the area. This may work to establish a census of sorts, or even to help dogs create a sense of "their own" territories. When other dogs enter marked territory, they become aware of the presence and gender identity of the resident dogs by sniffing urine-marked scent posts. Dogs may countermark, regardless of gender, although marking behavior, especially indoors, is most typical of intact, dominant male dogs. Neutered male dogs also will mark, but less frequently, and occasionally so do female dogs, more often those that are spayed rather than intact. This might be because spaying reduces female hormone levels and brings some female dogs closer to the male side of the gender spectrum, increasing their competitiveness with male dogs.

It is highly unlikely your dog is consciously thinking about all or even any of this. Marking behavior, although not caused by the presence of testosterone, leaves messages about the sexual condition of the dog due to the excretion of sex hormones in its urine. The presence of urine marks allows resident dogs to identify the presence, sexual condition and identity of other dogs in the area as well as to make the same statements about themselves.

Biologically speaking, marking behavior is not a byproduct of devilish dog spite, has nothing to do with need to eliminate and may not be helped with behavioral modification alone. The first step I suggest is neutering your dog. While castration is not a cure-all for marking behavior, it has been shown to reduce the likelihood by approximately 60 percent. If the behavior doesn't subside four weeks after castration, you will need to use some behavioral training techniques as well. But neutering ideally comes before tutoring for this sort of problem!

The immediate changes I'd suggest you make behaviorally would start with stopping all scolding and punishment. You are not reducing your dog's drive to mark, and actually are rewarding him with trips outdoors, immediately following scolding, which follows marking. Any intelligent dog quickly will figure out the sequence, and work to have it repeat. Marking in effect gets the dog outdoors, albeit with a minor detour into the "angry owner zone" first. Punishment has no place in dog training, as it doesn't teach the dog anything but avoidance of the owner! When alone, the dog would still mark and simply cower in reaction to the owner's return. To really modify behaviors we teach dogs where they can express specific behaviors and prevent success in inappropriate areas. This means you need to temporarily keep your dog on a leash when he is indoors, with you, or in his crate when you cannot.

Meanwhile you will work to create an aversion to his favorite marking areas in order to reduce his feelings of attraction to them. This can be accomplished by creating an aversion to a specific scent, such as vinegar, and "counter-marking" the areas with the scent. To create scent-aversion humanely, drop a cotton ball saturated with the scent on the floor, near the leashed dog. As he sniffs the cotton ball to investigate it, give a moderate tug on the leash, as you shake a plastic bottle with pennies in it and say "Eh!" all at the same time. But do not look at or scold the dog; try to feign absolute disinterest, even though you really are the one causing all of the "effects" of the cotton ball!

The objective is for the dog to conclude that this particular smell causes unpleasant things to happen, all by itself. You are an innocent bystander rather than a disciplinarian. Experimentation on the dog's part and the resulting consequences (yucky!) are the dog's "teachers," and they will reinforce the dog's future avoidance even when you are not present! If after a few days of restraint and scent-aversion training you begin to allow the dog supervised freedom, be sure to shake the penny bottle or say "Eh," without giving any dirty looks, if the dog ventures close to an old marking location. But do not get mad, rush the dog outdoors or remove him. If you find he has "done it again" when you were out of sight, do not bring him to the area, shame him or personally react in any way. Just clean the area and then retreat it with the aversive scent. The only way he will learn is to be allowed to experiment with his behaviors and learn to feel differently about them, from his own perspective. Continuing to allow your dog to mark outdoors shouldn't cause any increase in marking inside and doesn't normally require any modification to improve indoor results. Write back if you need further assistance.

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