# Why dogs raise their legs when they urinate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 16, 2007, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374 "2007-09-16T03:15:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aventis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a87d85/32.png) [@aventis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aventis)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/1 "2007-09-16T03:15:37Z")
There is a question I want to ask: Why dogs raise their legs when they urinate? ---
**Author:** ![SSG\_Schwartz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/2 "2007-09-16T03:17:46Z")
Male dogs do so they don’t pee on their leg. QED SSG Schwartz ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/3 "2007-09-16T03:22:56Z")
Bitches don’t raise their legs, they squat. Male dogs will sometimes squat instead of raising their legs; usually this is do to lack of socialization with other male dogs. My dachshund will do either. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/4 "2007-09-16T03:53:05Z")
Dogs like to mark vertical surfaces at nose-height. Leg-lifting is required to do this. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/5 "2007-09-16T04:14:38Z")
[QUOTE=SSG Schwartz] Male dogs do so they don’t pee on their leg. QED [/QUOTE] Look, I don’t care what you heard, I don’t pee on my leg. Ok, there was that one time… ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/6 "2007-09-16T04:15:00Z")
Male dogs are marking territory - letting other dogs know they’re in town and not going to take any guff. They want other dogs to walk by and go, “Hey, I just got a whiff of Sparky. This is his turf, man.” To do that, they want to aim at stuff at nose height for maximum effect. So they have to lift a leg. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/7 "2007-09-16T14:19:22Z")
Males who can no longer lift a hind leg due to injury or illness will squat like a bitch. One of our Newfoundland dogs has severe hip dysplasia and a torn ACL, so he squats. Of course, he’s also not out on long walks marking trees… ☹ ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/8 "2007-09-16T14:21:29Z")
We got our male dog as a puppy. He squatted until he got to be a year old or so, now he marks the fence like any adult dog. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/9 "2007-09-16T16:06:56Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] Male dogs are marking territory - letting other dogs know they’re in town and not going to take any guff. They want other dogs to walk by and go, “Hey, I just got a whiff of Sparky. This is his turf, man.” To do that, they want to aim at stuff at nose height for maximum effect. So they have to lift a leg. [/QUOTE] Yes. And no. Dogs are not territorial, they’re pack animals. Marking with urine is more akin to the tagging of the graffiti world, i.e. “Sparky Was Here”. And dogs don’t learn to lift the leg from other dogs, it’s hardwired, and the look of surprise on my dog when he first did this is testimony enough. Better testimony is that in a wolf pack, only the alpha male is allowed to lift his leg. He domintes the other males by surpressing their natural tendency to lift the leg. There are bitches that lift the hind leg too. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/10 "2007-09-16T16:21:44Z")
My husky bitch frequently lifts her leg, though not always. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/11 "2007-09-16T17:57:24Z")
A couple of people have mentioned “nose-height”… I had heard that it was, in part, in order to pee on a higher part of the tree (maybe higher up than what a previous dog had done) in order to seem as if “a big dog was here”; that is, to appear bigger than they are. Is there any truth/reasonable evidence that that’s the case? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/12 "2007-09-16T19:59:08Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] Bitches don’t raise their legs, they squat. Male dogs will sometimes squat instead of raising their legs; usually this is do to lack of socialization with other male dogs. My dachshund will do either. [/QUOTE] Could that be common among male Dachshunds, due to their body type? Seems to me if you’re built like a Knockwurst with little short legs it might a little difficult to stand on three of them. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/13 "2007-09-16T20:22:42Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] Could that be common among male Dachshunds, due to their body type? Seems to me if you’re built like a Knockwurst with little short legs it might a little difficult to stand on three of them. [/QUOTE] I don’t know, but I never saw any of the other 3 dachshunds I’ve had (RIP boys) squat. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/14 "2007-09-16T20:29:41Z")
My parents’ male German shepherd does not raise his leg. He kind of lets his hind leg behind him so that his pelvis is pointed more downward and then lets loose. Not quite a squat though. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/15 "2007-09-16T23:05:17Z")
I can picture that- I believe they are the only breed whose show “stack” has one foot slightly behind the other. ---
**Author:** ![BlakeTyner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@BlakeTyner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlakeTyner)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/16 "2007-09-17T01:14:03Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] I don’t know, but I never saw any of the other 3 dachshunds I’ve had (RIP boys) squat. [/QUOTE] My dachshund (ironically enough named Sparky) has lifted his leg since he was out of puppyhood, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem. He’s 12 now and still lifting away. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/17 "2007-09-17T01:28:21Z")
[QUOTE=mnemosyne] A couple of people have mentioned “nose-height”… I had heard that it was, in part, in order to pee on a higher part of the tree (maybe higher up than what a previous dog had done) in order to seem as if “a big dog was here”; that is, to appear bigger than they are. Is there any truth/reasonable evidence that that’s the case? [/QUOTE] Just anecdotal, but my dog doesn’t lift his leg when peeing on our back lawn, and does when going on bushes. When peeing on grass in the park, he doesn’t lift his leg, but after finishing he scratches with his paws to make the scent go higher. Our bitch never lifts her leg at all, but she isn’t alpha in any way. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dogs-raise-their-legs-when-they-urinate/419374/18 "2007-09-17T13:07:03Z")
Dogs castrated prior to sexually maturity will often squat to pee.