Dog Licking Urine

[CarrieW]

Hello. Judging from the title of my question, you can guess that my German Shepherd has an embarassing problem. He seeks out the pee in the grass from my other two dogs and licks the grass where they've urinated. I have never been able to break him of this habit, but it is quite troublesome. Any ideas why he does this or how I can stop him?
Thanks!

[presto-chick]

Well, I don't know too much about the reasons why...but i could guess. Dogs have three very strong senses. 1) smell-the can smell the barbeque three blocks over. 2) Hearing-
one example for me is my dogs are kept in my yard and if they hear my bike from the next block over they'll start barking. 3) Taste- here's where i believe the problem lies. If the dog smells something and can't decern it from the smell, the next thing it's going to try is to taste it. Now, I could be comletely wrong, but maybe one of it's senses is weaker and so it uses it's taste to decifer who's "marked the spot". It's just a thought, i'm no professional, but it might be worth looking in to. http://PetoftheDay.com/talk/smile.gif

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Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.
-Richard Bach

[Fransetter]

Your problem to the dog is not a problem. What you have here is a dog using an organ in the roof of its mouth, which humans (thank god) do not possess. This organ does something which is rather strange, the nearest thing I can get in a description is that it allows them to taste scent.. which allows dogs to analyze scent in a way which we cannot even begin to imagine. Horses also have this ability, and if you see a horses lifting its lips whilst showing all of its teeth, it is likely to be utilizing this organ.... don't ask me for the correct spelling is goes something vermonasal organ!

This occurs a lot with un-neutered male dogs who are inclined to be hyper-sexual. In fact in my training class this morning, we have a little West Highland Terrier who comes, and he sniffs and licks at the ground, particularly if a nice little girlie dog has walked ahead of him.

Really to stop this problem you have to be VERY drastic to the point of cruelty in the way of punishment, and I certainly do not advocate such things... although there are people out there who will... obviously anything like that can and will most likely cause long term psychological harm because the dog will learn to fear its own drives which doesn't bear thinking about. The other solution would be to have the dogs 'nuts' removed and then wait for the hormone levels to lower.

Hope this helps.



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[CarrieW]

Thank You So much! I thought I just had a perverted dog on my hands, but I didn't want to punish him for it because I have learned that often the reason we humans think dogs do things, are usually incorrect.
That makes a lot of sense. I knew that his sense of smell was still okay because he's an excellent tracking dog.
And I will definately have him neutered. Not just for that reason, but because he's bothering my other two dogs. Hypersexual definately describes him!
Again, Thank you for helping clear this up!

[Rebel_Rouser]

You think you had a "gross" problem. My wonderful AmStaff puppy, who is wonderful in almost every way, loves to eat "Kittie Krunchies"...he'll even dig up the ones the wild cats leave in our yard. I've yelled, don't want to hit him, so I've yelled even louder http://PetoftheDay.com/talk/smile.gif, but he won't stop.

One good point to all this, I don't have to change the litter box quite as much http://PetoftheDay.com/talk/biggrin.gif Just kidding of course, altho it seems it doesn't matter where I hide the litterbox, he finds it. Any suggestions??

Thanks...oh, and one more question: how do I put a picture into this? I've seen someone do it.

Laura

[COMETWORFPUP10]

What You need to do is one day put your dogs outside then when your other dog goes out to inspect the pee follow him out with him on a leash. The with glove pick some of the grass in the area and with a magnifying glass inspect the piece of grass