Last week’s blog post talked about preventing fights when visitors bring their dogs over. A less critical but still bothersome issue that came up while we had visiting dogs in our house was urine marking. A guest’s male beagle started peeing on the floor, which caused one of our dogs to do the same. Obviously, we had to put a stop to that behavior, but how?
Our guests, of course, were embarrassed, and insisted on keeping their dog outside or in the garage. We all felt sorry for the exiled hound, though. His droopy eyes followed us sorrowfully every time we passed the window, and at night, he howled a song of loneliness from the garage.
The next day, we gave him another chance and it paid off. The trick was to supervise him closely at all times. He was allowed to join us in the living room whenever we were gathered there. Like most dogs, he felt safe and relaxed being surrounded by people, so he was content and well behaved. He was also allowed to sleep in the room with his family. It’s a small bedroom away from the other dogs, so marking was not a problem. Whenever we all left the house, we made sure the beagle was either in that bedroom or (if the weather was nice and we wouldn’t be gone long) in the back yard. For more tips on preventing visiting dogs from marking, check out this article from VCA Animal Hospitals. For tips on training your own dog from marking in other homes, try this article.