[Dailydrool] submissive urination

[Opal-Deitering, Gaylene]

Been off the drool for a while, but I have to chime in on the submissive urination thread.  PLEASE don't assume that every dog who urinates submissively, or has other disturbing behaviors, has been abused.  I think it is a really big mistake to assume that abuse is the only reason.  Some dogs just do it because that is their personality.  Trying to anthropomorphize the behavior into an abuse history might do more harm than good.  Some dogs are naturally submissive, just like every wolf can't be the leader of the pack, some have to be followers and submissive.  It is natural.

My personal story is that I have one dog who was born in my house who is afraid of EVERYONE.  While she is not a whizzer, Channy barks, carries on and hides any time a stranger is in my house.  She is the smartest dog alive, except when she is in a stressful situation.  Channy has NEVER been abused.  She has never lived outside my home.  She has been loved since she was pooped out.  As a puppy I socialized her at every opportunity, taking her to hardware stores and other dog friendly places.  She has been to both a basset picnic and a waddle when she was under a year old, and she loved them both.  Now I can't take her out in public because she gets completely stressed out around strangers.  The way she behaves, you would think that the dog had been dragged behind a bus. Not EVERY dog who shows fear and submission has been abused.  Some of them are just wired that way.

Clover is my whizzer.  Came to us at 10 weeks as a whizzer, and didn't stop until she was 6.  Still does it sometimes at 12 yrs old.  She was never abused.  She has also been pretty well socialized, and likes people. A little timid, but not a cowering wreck like Channy.  Clover whizzes, Channy cowers.  Neither has been abused.

Brutus is dangerous around strangers and might bite, so he doesn't go anywhere anymore, and wears a muzzle at the vet.  His story is a little different.  I sold him to a wonderful home when he was about 13 wks old.  They kept him for a week, found out that Dad was allergic, and kept him two more weeks to see if they could work it out.  Returned him to me when they realized they couldn't deal with the allergy problem.  I socialized him continuously (the family met us at the Lowes, and the kids played with Brutie on the floor of the store) and continued to do that when I got him back.  One day when he was about 6 month old or so, we took him to the local gas station and I walked him around while DH pumped gas.  Brutus was very popular with everyone passing by, even jumped up for petting on the side of someone's car and got some lovins.  We then walked over to the bank, where Brutus sniffed a car bumper, cowered and started growling.  When the man who owned the car came out, Brutie sniffed him, then cowered and started barking while backing away.  It has all been downhill from there.  Now he is protective to a fault, he gets scared, he wants to bite, and I can't trust him.  It was like watching a switch get thrown and suddenly he was not the same dog.  Literally in the span of a few moments between sniffing the car and sniffing the man, he changed.  No one abused him in my home, and I really don't think that anyone abused him in the family where he spent 3 weeks.  Now I can conjecture that there was something unhappy going on between the mother and the father in that home, which started a protective mind set in the dog, and was triggered by smelling something scary with the guy at the bank, but the dog has not been abused.

Before you think I am a bad basset mom, I have 3 more born in my house who love everyone and are socialized the same way as the others. They go to waddles and picnics, petco and the hardware store, and there has never been a cross word toward anyone.  Some dogs are just wired differently than others. On the flip side, some of the friendliest and most outgoing dogs in the world have come from horrible abuse situations.  Some just have sunny dispositions, and some have to learn to have them.  Then there are my two troubled kids that I can't fix.  Sigh... Love them anyway!

Gaylene Opal-Deitering
My passions do not replace my relationship with God, but are instead a reflection of it!

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