Do you love to sleep with your dog–but have awakened to find he has peed on your bed? Or do you walk into the room in the middle of the day and find pee on your bed? If you think your dog peed on your bed on purpose, take a deep breath–we’ve got advice for you!
Our Personal Experience with This Problem
Meet Barli. We adopted Barli when he was five months old. He’d been picked up by animal control as a stray at just two months old, so he’d spent more of his life in a shelter kennel than anywhere else.
As a result, he was pretty sure that the best place to pee was, well, just about anywhere.
I love sleeping with our dogs and we were determined to help grow our bond with Barli right off the bat, so from the first night on, he slept with us. He’d spent enough of his puppyhood in a crate so we let him sleep with us.
Throughout the day, we followed a regimented housetraining schedule, taking him out throughout the day, after every meal and right before bedtime.
Nonetheless, he peed on our bed whenever we turned our backs.
He didn’t just peed on the bed while we were sleeping; he peed on the bed while we were in the next room, purposefully going to the bed, getting up on the bed and urinating. This wasn’t the problem of a dog who won’t pee outside; he happily peed outside every time…but he still came back in the house and peed on our bed.
After a vet checkup (again) to make sure he had no urinary tract or kidney issues, we doubled down on our housetraining schedule, taking him out more frequently than ever.
First, we covered the bed with TWO waterproof mattress covers, one below the covers to protect the mattress itself if he urinated on the bed while we were sleeping. The second waterproof mattress cover protected the bed covers. It didn’t look great but it greatly reduced our laundry!
We removed all decorative pillows from the bed; our pillows went beneath the top mattress cover. We kept a waterproof blanket on the bed on very cold mornings if Barli wanted something cozier to snuggle with.
We washed covers with enzyme cleaners to remove all traces of urine scent to prevent him from returning to the scene of the crime.
What helped the most? Time.
Much of Barli’s urinating was done to hide his own scent in our own; our beds contain our scent even when we’re not in them so by peeing in our bed, he was masking his scent with our own.
As Barli’s confidence grew, the peeing stopped. Completely. One day, he no longer peed on the bed and, in the fours years since, has never peed on the bed again.
How did we grow his confidence? By taking him to positive reinforcement dog training classes, by getting out and exploring the world together, and by just becoming a family!
Animal Behaviorist’s Advice on Dog Peeing In Bed
This is not a problem that’s ours alone. One of our readers wrote in to ask for animal behaviorist Dr. Diane Pomerance‘s advice:
Dear Dr. Diane,
We adopted a 1.5-year-old female Jack Russell mix from the shelter. She was in the prison training program but only for a few weeks.
She is mostly housetrained but does have accidents occasionally.
The problem is that she will urinate on our beds randomly. We cannot figure out why she does this. We have had her since end of August and it’s happened only 3 times but my husband is furious with her and me.
I never catch her in the act as it’s always after the fact she has done it that I find it. Please help! My husband and I fight about getting rid of her. My husband feels she has peed on our bed on purpose. While I understand his frustration (and mine!) it’s not a continuous thing that she does. Thanks.
First, have your puppy examined by your vet to determine if there are any physical issues, i.e. bladder or urinary tract infections or other physical problem that are responsible for this behavior. Ask your vet for help in determining the cause of and possible resolution to this problem..
Next, try crate-training her, and teach her to urinate and defecate outside. Take her for regular walks and make sure she receives regular exercise. However, I am sensing that this is a spontaneous, uncontrollable issue. She may actually benefit from medication to help resolve this problem if it continues. Consult your vet.
My suggestion would be to keep her out of the bedroom, or in a comfortable crate in your bedroom until you let her out to do her business so that this behavior does not recur.
You may wish to keep her confined in a dog-safe room, puppy pen or crate inside the house.
I hope that you and your husband decide to keep her. She is like a human child who makes mistakes. No dog or cat is” perfect” no matter how wonderful they may be. Just like us, they all” make mistakes.” Be patient and compassionate. You have saved her life by rescuing her – do your best to love, appreciate and enjoy her.
Her peeing may be an automatic emotional response to the way she responded to events, traumas, and disturbances prior to her adoption by you and your husband or simply a spontaneous/uncontrollable individual episode. I am certain she is not doing this on purpose.
She is a dog you’ve rescued – you don’t know what kind of suffering or trauma she may have endured. Do your best to “forgive” her – as you would a child, for in fact, she is very much like a human child not deserving of punishment or banishment but of love, compassion and understanding. I wish you the very best of outcomes for you, your husband and your dog.
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