I used to have a dog. She was a cute little dog. She wasn’t very smart or very affectionate but she got lots of attention from friends and strangers just based on her looks. She loved attention.
As she outgrew puppyhood, she was still a good enough dog, if a little high-strung, but the cute factor began to play less of a role. She was beginning to enter the category of a “good-enough looking” or even a “nothing to be ashamed of” type of dog. Which was fine, except it wasn’t. See, she still craved the attention she got back when she was the cutest thing around, and she wasn’t getting it any more. And she wasn’t about to go back and become smart or useful or affectionate – it just wasn’t in her nature. So she evolved a different plan to remain the focus of everyone’s attention.
She became the Dog That Pees On Everything.
Everything. Plants, rugs, furniture, other dogs, people – she neither knew nor cared what her target was, as long as it made people look and say her name. There was no punishment sufficient to overcome the rush she got for a few moments when she lifted her leg and soiled the surrounding area. Unfortunately, although her presence was required less and less, she had run out of tricks and her only recourse was to create a larger and fouler mess whenever she did get the opportunity. In short, as her looks went south, her behavior did too, because she simply wasn’t smart or nice enough to figure out another way of getting attention, or mature and wise enough to do without it.