Why won't my dog lift his leg?
My male dog pees like a female. Do they need another dog to teach them how to lift their leg?
6 Answers
My boglen terrier pees both ways! If he is near a tree then he will pee on it but if there is nothing around for him to lift his leg up for then he will squat. It's mostly learned through observation. There is nothing wrong with your male dog peeing like a girl.
Is your dog neutered? Neutered males, if done early usually don't lift their leg. Intact males generally lift their leg when marking, all my males have been neutered early so they never developed that habit. And seeing other dogs do it will not teach him to do it. Either he does or doesn't.
Totally fine. They only leg lift when they are marking and to be honest marking is not a habit most people want unless trying to keep wildlife out of the yard. It just means he doesn’t feel the need to cast his scent out for territory or mating purposes.
There's nothing wrong with your dog. My 1 1/2 year old (neutered) male pees like a girl ;). However, he recently has started to lift his leg very randomly. I attribute this to my boyfriend's male dog's influence.
This usually doesn't pan out to be any sort of problem. A lot of the male dogs that I watch don't lift their leg when using the bathroom but rather lunge forward - especially the small dogs. It's just a quirk!
I've had German Shorthaired Pointers since 1970. None of the males has ever (well, almost) lifted his leg.
GSP people have told me that not lifting the leg was a desirable trait encouraged in the breeding of GSPs and some other breeds of field dogs, the object being that raising a leg might rustle the tall grasses and prematurely flush the birds. It might also increase marking, which would be a distraction while the dog was working.
Along the same line of reasoning, they said that docking the tails, at least in field dogs, meant tail movement would not disturb the birds. Depending on the kind and height of indigenous grasses in the geography where the dog was bred had a lot to do with the length to which the breed's tail was docked.
I heard this consistently in those earlier years. I haven't heard any further talk about it until quite recently.
Just how much basis in fact the breeding explanation has, I don't know, but at the time, it sounded very reasonable.
When dogs are younger they usually pee like a girl at first. Sometimes they learn from other dogs how to pee with there leg up, sometimes they learn themselves, and sometimes they don't. All dogs are different.