These are often called "Excited wees" or "Happy wees"
Spoiler alert: It is not a happy or excited behaviour!
Urine contains pheromones as is used by canines to gather information about others. This is part of the reason they like to sniff and urine mark on walks, to communicate and pass the information on about them.
If your dog or puppy passes urine in a social greeting setting this is a big red flag that they are overwhelmed. Often feeling scared or worried, so they desperately try to give off personal information, saying 'Please don’t hurt me' by passing urine, to keep the interaction positive or to end the interaction. This also includes dogs or puppies that can be frantic in their greeting behaviours with over animated behaviours such as: jumping up, mouthing and pulling, as these too are all signs of being overwhelmed.
Over time, the weeing can increase during greets, as it becomes a learnt behaviour, that weeing ended the interaction or they remained safe afterwards.
Therefore, if you see any weeing behaviours developing, go back a few steps in your socialisation. Allow your dog or puppy to not greet until calm and have become adjusted to the new person. Plus allow them to investigate new people without any physical contact or touching, to build confidence without urination!
If you are unsure what is right for your dog, contact us!
