So, a change from the cat threads.
My dog is 14 and rather set in his ways. He’s a West Highland White Terrier, pretty bossy. I should add that he was never quite all the way solid housebroken, which is my fault, I know. He used to pee a lot in my parents’ house, but this time last year I bought my own house and he’s been very good here (new house, new rules, I think.) He sleeps in the laundry room (a very spacious back room with, thank goodness, a linoleum floor) and very rarely has peed in it. Once or twice, with long thunderstorms when he wouldn’t go out into the yard, but that I understand. Normally he spends a lot of the day outside - I let him out when I get up, around 7:30, and he stays out when I’m at work. He’s got a nice setup outside, very happy, don’t worry about him.
So, two weeks ago, I bring this cat home. Hap doesn’t seem to mind the smell of the cat, although he does give it a sniff, but the actual person of the cat he really doesn’t care for. I’ve tried to introduce them twice, with the dog on a leash and the cat in a carrier, and while the first time was better we are definately still not ready for prime time. I’ve been switching their bedding out and letting them get used to each others’ smells and so forth.
So, now he pees in the laundry room, which I guess is a dominance thing. He didn’t start when we got the cat, though, or when he met the cat, he started two days ago. He does seem to be peeing “in quantity”, however, maybe not so much the little “marking dribble”. I don’t know what to make of that. Of course I clean it up as soon as I find it, and yesterday I went on a big cleaning tear, did a really good job of mopping back there and everything, (even gave him a bath so he didn’t smell up everything I cleaned!) and he peed back there yesterday afternoon (when I’m home I have to swap out the cat and the dog from the living room, obviously, and he peed on my freshly mopped and dried floor) and this morning I stepped in a puddle when I went to let him out. Urrrrgh.
So, what can I do? I mean, it’s because of the cat, right? The cat has been back into that room once when it was empty, although I shooed him right out because I hadn’t catproofed it. I think that was about a week ago, though. Could I maybe be confusing a health issue for a dominance issue because of a coincidence in timing? (I ask because he seems to be going in “real pee quantities”, not a marking spritz here and there.) Is there anything I can do for the dominance issue? Obviously I don’t want my poor puppydog to be anxious about anything, but I’m sure if you asked him what he wants he’d say I should get rid of the cat, and I’m not going to do that. Are there any products that would help here? (Dog calming air freshener? I’m only halfway kidding.) He hasn’t acted anxious in any other way when the cat isn’t in the room - he sniffs the cat’s things and comes to me for a belly rub like always, and I can’t catch him in the act because he does it usually in the still of the night. I’m really at a loss as to how this problem can be fixed, and I’m afraid that even when/if he comes to accept the cat he’ll have gotten himself in the habit of peeing inside. What can I do?