If you’re a Chihuahua owner, you may be all too familiar with chihuahua excitement peeing. Your pup gets excited when you walk in the door, and before you know it, there’s a little puddle on the floor. Whether it’s caused by excitement or stress, it’s a well-known issue for this energetic breed.
But why does it happen, and how can you manage it? Let’s dive into the reasons behind chihuahua excitement peeing and how you can help.
Involuntary urination occurs when a Chihuahua is unable to control their bladder, often leading to peeing when they’re overly excited or stressed.
While this behaviour can happen in any dog breed, chihuahuas, being naturally high-energy and excitable, may experience it more frequently.
There are also medical conditions that can cause urine leakage. If this is a new behaviour for your dog, consulting with a vet is essential. Hormonal incontinence, for example, can affect young female dogs, particularly if they were spayed at an early age.
Your chihuahua may do an excitement pee in different situations.
Someone comes in the door.
Putting the harness on for a walk.
If you approach them in a way that looks threatening.
When there’s lots of movement and noise.
If another dog approaches.
When you pick them up.
While marking in the house is not involuntary, it can be driven by excitement and anxiety so it’s worth mentioning it and you can find more about it here. Marking in the house
One of the first things you need to consider is the situations your chihuahua is in when they excitement wee, is it excitement or anxiety. Here’s a couple of examples.
My friend Barbra is our Macy’s favourite person in the whole world. She doesn’t see her very often, but when she does, she is so excited she will pee on the floor. (Macy not Barbra!) This is driven by pure, beside herself, excitement and the only time she ever does it.
As an example of stress peeing, one summer I had to quickly get to Prince to stop him eating a bee, my sudden movement frightened him, and he rolled on his back and peed in the air.
Understanding which one it is can help you start to deal with it. If your chihuahua is excitement peeing then calmness in that situation is going to be helpful and if it’s anxiety driven, building some confidence will help.
Never shout or be annoyed with your dog for excitement peeing, they have no control over it and if you shout or get annoyed you will be adding more energy into an already high arousal situation.
Tips a few quick tips to help deal with chihuahua excitement peeing
Look at the situation and decide if it’s anxiety or excitement.
Calmness
Grow more calmness in the house. Look at your dog’s daily routine, are they charging around constantly and overtired. Read how to get a calm chihuahua. Tiredness creates a full bucket, which in turn causes crazy behaviour.
Manage the situation to prevent rehearsal of the triggers that drive the behaviour. For instance, if your partner or kids coming home results in a puddle stop allowing your chihuahua access to the door so they can’t rehearse this. Use management while you work on training.
Employ elsewhere, give your chihuahua something else to do. Get them employed on a snuffle mat, in the kitchen away from the door and prevent them going back out to interact. The act of snuffling or chewing is calming for a dog and will help bring arousal levels down. Be proactive and have a snuffle mat or lick mat ready-to-go for these situations.
Don’t work in the situation
Don’t try to train your chihuahua when it’s all kicking off, instead use management at this point. Help your chihuahua grow the skills they need when they are calm and in a learning headspace.
Anxiety peeing
Anxiety peeing or stress weeing is slightly harder to unpick.
Look at the situation that makes your chihuahua excitement pee and do your best to manage it to prevent rehearsal. For example, if picking the dog up makes them pee, then stop picking them up as much as you can.
Make sure the dog is getting plenty of rest and opportunities to chill out. Put in place your calmness protocol and include a lot of active rest.
Crazy behaviour when you come home could be driven by separation anxiety. This is a subject in itself. Watch our workshop on separation anxiety. https://youtu.be/qOUkEby6EEc
Work on your dog’s confidence and optimism. A pessimistic dog tends towards anxiety. Play games with your chihuahua that tip them into seeking mode. This is a positive headspace for a dog. Games chasing food, snuffle mats, scatter feeds and hunting for food in cardboard boxes.
Confidence and calm is something we go over in detail in our award winning, online training course for chihuahuas. You can learn more about Chihuahua School here.
In a nutshell, the formula is,
Calmness
Management
Employment
Confidence
Look at the situation and unpick it following these steps and you should see an end to chihuahua excitement peeing.
Download some helpful chihuahua resources here;
