Hey Everybody it’s Michele Lennon here from How To Train A Dream Dog I’m your go-to
for all things puppy
It’s that time... when you ask me questions and I give you answers
This question comes all the way from our Puppy Training with Michele Lennon Facebook group
where
LeAnn posts “This is my baby Ada..she is 3months old and is doing well with potty training,
except when I leave her too long during the day..
but mostly she will go on her pee pads.
My question is, she gets very excited when I come home or if she encounters a neighbor
outside) she then starts peeing all over while jumping around with excitement to see someone.
Does anyone know if this will last while a puppy or what I may do to stop it?
I'm hoping she grows out of it 😒
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Ok LeAnn I have a whole bunch of helpful tips for your situation, here we go
First things first, Ada is absolutely adorable, I love the markings on her face!
I’m going to break this post down into a few different parts since there are few topics
going on here
and I think everyone can benefit from as much info as possible
Ada is only going to be able to hold her bladder about 1 hour per month of age.
This is typical for most dogs
When you leave make sure Ada is in a crate that’s just the right size for her.
We don’t want a crate to be too big, otherwise, she’s likely to have an accident in it.
You can peek at this video here all about the right crate size if you think she might
need a smaller crate to help avoid accidents and anxiety build up.
I cover the crate and play calming music for my pups when I leave.
Actually LeAnn, and all the viewers out there, if you want here’s a link to all my crate
training videos I have on YouTube, there’s a whole crate training playlist!
There are tons of tips to help make crate training positive and successful!
Now lets talk about those pee pads you mentioned.
I’m not a big fan of pee pads as they encourage our pups to go potty in the house.
They often get chewed once our puppy hits 9 to 10 weeks and older
Plus most puppies start missing the pad completely and going next to it or in a whole other room
altogether.
You can actually watch my Stop Using Pee Pads video here
The better behavior to teach your puppy is… potty outside instead of in the house.
We can take our puppy outside in the grass and reward them for going outside.
The more reinforcement they get for going outside the faster they will potty train.
For those of you that would love a free lesson on potty training or a sample puppy schedule
and even my potty chart to keep you on track of what happens and when...
Be sure to grab the Free New Puppy Starter Kit, I’ll put the link below this video
in the description
Now let’s talk about the bigger question here… excited puppy pee and how to stop
it
This is definitely something we are going to want to work on as it is one of those behaviors
that not all puppies just outgrow naturally
As a matter of fact it can get much worse if we continue with some behaviors of our
own when around Ada
Here’s the deal, when a puppy is exposed to something exciting their heart starts pupping
and the blood starts flowing faster through their system
So does the adrenaline
Now a puppy’s body can only run so many systems internally at once so one of them
is bound to misfire
This would be your puppy’s ability or inability to hold their bladder when exciting situations
pop up
At least until their systems are fully developed and they are more mature
What makes your pup’s internal system go haywire, even more, is if the stimuli is too
close to them and they get some sort of interaction or reinforcement for the very behavior you’re
wishing they would stop
Such as excited tinkles on the floor
You see, when you come home Ada thinks this is the best part of the day.
You have returned!
Cue the confetti, balloons, party music!!
Now she already started to get excited when she heard the car pull into the driveway,
then she become even more excited when the door opened and you entered
And OH MY GOSH… you spoke to her and she hung on every word you said
By that point her tail was going 100 miles an hour and the adrenaline was pumping through
her little system at top speeds
Since Ada is only 3 months old her system isn’t fully developed yet so her brain and
bladder aren’t 100% on the same page just yet
It often takes puppies a few weeks to a few months to have strong enough bladder muscles
to hold it for longer periods of time especially when something exciting is happening.
Now something else that’s happening to Ada... she is getting reinforcement and attention
for being over the top excited
Since reinforcement builds behavior this means Ada is getting rewarded for jumping around
and peeing all over
I know it may be hard for you, guests, and neighbors to resist Ada’s cuteness until
she is calm but calmness is what we want to reward
What needs to happen first is...
Ada needs to learn some foundation impulse control games we cover inside our on-demand,
online puppy, training course called 30 Days to Puppy Perfection
We can slowly start to teach Ada how to be calm and patient when she sees someone or
something she’d like to say hi to or check out.
What I often talk about in training is the magic line or the threshold,
The threshold is the distance away from a distraction or a trigger before a puppy reacts
If we cross over the threshold or get too close before our puppy is ready to handle
the triggers the puppy will likely not be able to stay calm and under control.
This threshold is different for each dog and will change with each new trigger and environment
you are working in
This is why your pup might be calm in your house but when they meet a neighbor outside
they lose their cool.
The outside stimuli and distractions can add to your pups overstimulation
I always tell my students they have the trainer’s permission to tell other people who want to
pet their puppy
“whoa, we are in training right now and working towards our certification,
you can help us work on puppy calmness by only petting my puppy when she is calm and
sitting.
If she gets up, you have to stop petting her and step away.”
No, it’s not easy to tell someone to stop while you work on getting your puppy calm
but we have to advocate for our puppy, they can’t do it themselves.
If everyone keeps petting our puppy while they are jumping and peeing we are going to
feel way worse if they get peed on or scratched.
And of course puppy isn’t going to learn how to have the best manners possible
Now what our students in 30 Days to Puppy Perfection are practicing right now is something
I like to call Pre-Training
This means they are training their puppy before they need to pull out the commands when the
distractions are higher
Think of the pre-training as the dress rehearsal, there are lots of dress rehearsals before
the show happens
In this type of lesson the show would be a meet and greet with someone else
We would have to have a lot of dress rehearsals with limited distractions or people at a far
distance away
Far enough that Ada isn’t overly excited
We would work on this for several training sessions before we increased the distraction
levels or worked closer to the people Ada wants to say “HI” to
In the course I cover some other fun games to get our pups to stay more focused on us
and avoid distractions
These games come in handy when we are out and about outside.
The key to a successful meet and greet is a lot of dress rehearsals without tipping
over the threshold.
If we move too fast through the training, we will see setbacks and Ada will revert back
to excitedly peeing when she sees guests or neighbors or if she gets too close to them
too soon.
Before I share my last tip, if you haven’t done so already be sure to hit that subscribe
button to get notified when next week’s lesson comes out
Ok the last tip I want to share with you is all about creating a default behavior.
This means that we can actually teach our puppy’s to perform a certain behavior when
something very specific happens
A good example would be if there’s a knock on the door our puppy immediately goes to
their bed to lay down,
or for those barking pups they might find a toy to put in their mouth instead.
In order to teach a behavior like this we do have to break down the sequence into multiple
baby steps
We then start to layer the steps together until we get to the finished product
Teaching a behavior like this will take time but it’s better than the alternative which
may be a puddle at your company’s feet or a barking dog when guests enter your home
or someone knocks at your door.
The first step is to teach your pup the behavior without the pressure of company present or
what ever the trigger may be
Once your pup has an understanding of the behaviors you’ll slowly start to add in
mild distractions while you practice this skill
You will eventually add in distance away from your puppy too
For more information on how to slowly turn up the training dial and how to work on better
puppy behavior I recommend you check out my free workshop called Better Puppy Behavior.
I’ll post the link in the comments below for you.
Now go slow with your training.
Think of what you want your pup’s behavior to look like and start practicing before the
BIG SHOW!
In the comments below tell me what gets your puppy overly excited!