# Ep 93 The Truth About Dogs and Marking

An episode of [Help! My Dog: The Podcast. Dog Behaviour & Training Strategies that Work!](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1721245241), 10 Sep 2025, 12 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2287608/episodes/17553954-ep-93-the-truth-about-dogs-and-marking.mp3

Is your dog marking in the house? Although it’s a common behaviour struggle, it can feel pretty frustrating when it keeps happening despite your best efforts. In this episode, we take a deep dive into the reasons dogs mark and what might really be going on when they do it. You’ll hear a listener’s real-life question that inspired this conversation, plus practical steps to help you understand and manage the behaviour. We’ll talk through common triggers, the role of emotions, and why “rehearsal” matters more than you might think. Whether your dog has just started or has been doing it for a while, you’ll come away with a fresh perspective on what’s happening and what to do next. Listen in to find out how to stop the cycle of marking for good. ................ Whether your dog is unpredictable with other dogs or predictably bad… Whether it looks like freezing, barking, lunging or running away… Whether you are just starting out on your dog-owning journey or your dog has been labelled as having a “behaviour problem”… … this episode is for you and is going to give you huge insights! Want to join the Help! My Dog Online HUB? Here's the link: www.helpmydog.com/hub Dr Tom Mitchell is a world-renowned veterinarian, behaviourist and dog trainer and director of the Behavet behaviour clinic (rated Excellent on Trustpilot), which sees over 400 pet behaviour consultations each and every month no matter where you are in the world. In 2023, he founded Help! My Dog, an online dog behaviour learning platform to help even more owners all over the world and show that dog behaviour transformation is not only possible but it's FUN, with the right know-how! Make sure to subscribe/follow the podcast for the free weekly episodes! Useful Links: Follow Help! My Dog on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helpmydogofficial/ Schedule a Consultation with Behavet: https://www.beha.vet/ Follow Behavet on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/behavet

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_00: Calmness is incompatible with fear, it's incompatible with frustration, it's incompatible with excitement.
[0:08] SPEAKER_00: Because if you're calm, you can't be calm and excited.
[0:12] SPEAKER_00: You can't be calm and frustrated.
[0:14] SPEAKER_00: You can't be calm and scared because you're being calm, right?
[0:17] SPEAKER_00: Because the more we establish calmness, the more we can rule out this being a coping strategy for another emotion.
[0:24] SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, a warning.
[0:26] SPEAKER_00: The content of this podcast may not be appropriate for some young listeners.
[0:32] SPEAKER_00: This is real life, and that means that sometimes it can be a little bit graphic.
[0:36] SPEAKER_00: So listen on at your own peril.
[0:39] SPEAKER_00: As a veterinarian, dog behaviourist, best-selling author and trainer, over the past decade I've had an obsession with transforming the behaviour of dogs.
[0:48] SPEAKER_00: Understanding their brains and creating practical strategies that you can implement easily at home.
[0:54] SPEAKER_00: I know all too well when the dream you imagined when you first got your dog is far from your daily reality.
[1:00] SPEAKER_00: In fact, out of the blue, a few months ago, my little dog Gorse was bitten by a dog 20 times her size.
[1:07] SPEAKER_00: And suddenly our life of stress-free walks, a calm and cuddly household, and being teammates was replaced with reactivity, anxiety, and worrying about what's around the next corner.
[1:18] SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
[1:19] SPEAKER_00: Tom.
[1:19] SPEAKER_00: This is the Help My Dog Podcast, and this is me documenting that journey of transformation, sharing my knowledge and experience with you and having a few laughs along the way.
[1:30] SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Help My Dog Podcast.
[1:35] SPEAKER_00: And today we're tackling a listener's question.
[1:39] SPEAKER_00: And the listener is actually the trainer of the victim.
[1:44] SPEAKER_00: And so this question comes from actually one of the trainers in our Help My Dog hub.
[1:52] SPEAKER_00: And she says the following My question is: a client's dog is marking in the house.
[1:58] SPEAKER_00: They've been traveling for 14 days and staying in a cottage.
[2:02] SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, her dog didn't mark inside there.
[2:05] SPEAKER_00: But now they're back home and he's doing it again.
[2:08] SPEAKER_00: He's marking his own bed.
[2:09] SPEAKER_00: I don't think this is really related to hormones since he since he didn't do this on vacation, even though two other dogs he knows were there.
[2:17] SPEAKER_00: What to do?
[2:19] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's make this a bit broader.
[2:21] SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about marking generally.
[2:23] SPEAKER_00: So marking is obviously the act of urinating on something.
[2:28] SPEAKER_00: It tends to be that, you know, for example, male dogs will urinate up something, um, they will cock their leg, whereas female dogs they will tend to squat, although not, you know, again, varies.
[2:40] SPEAKER_00: That that though that isn't the case for either sometimes.
[2:44] SPEAKER_00: And so, why do dogs mark?
[2:47] SPEAKER_00: Well, um, the first reason that that dogs can mark is sometimes just that they did it once and there's that rehearsal history.
[2:55] SPEAKER_00: And so dogs will often mark where there is the smell of either another dog's urine or their own.
[3:02] SPEAKER_00: They sometimes don't realize it's their own.
[3:04] SPEAKER_00: Um and they will do it again.
[3:06] SPEAKER_00: And sometimes what can happen is this purely can just be a rehearsal situation that um that develops.
[3:13] SPEAKER_00: The second reason though is sometimes this can be a coping strategy.
[3:17] SPEAKER_00: And a coping strategy um for any kind of emotion, it could be from excitement, it could be from frustration, it could be from fear or anxiety.
[3:28] SPEAKER_00: Um, it sometimes just doesn't matter, okay?
[3:31] SPEAKER_00: Um, as in it doesn't matter what emotion um is is driving that.
[3:36] SPEAKER_00: So that's the second um reason that can be um that can be quite common.
[3:41] SPEAKER_00: Third reason that this can happen um with marking is um sometimes I I guess hormones would hormones would be the other one.
[3:53] SPEAKER_00: So um, and I know um that this listener has said doesn't think it's hormones.
[3:58] SPEAKER_00: Hormones can sometimes make dogs mark more, okay?
[4:02] SPEAKER_00: It doesn't always it it kind of doesn't, it wouldn't be the only causes in they will be marking as well as for another reason.
[4:10] SPEAKER_00: Um, but effectively dogs that um are, for example, female dogs that are either coming into season or are in season, they will often mark over other dogs' urine a lot.
[4:23] SPEAKER_00: Um, and equally male dogs, they can just like marking because they are just they're having a bit of a testosterone high, right?
[4:30] SPEAKER_00: And so that can certainly be um a factor as well.
[4:33] SPEAKER_00: Final, fourth reason that I've alluded to there, which can be made worse by hormones, is hey guys, I just want to take a moment to answer a question that has been coming in in literally 10 emails today, and that is how can we help you with your dog's behavior struggle, whether that be reactivity, separation, anxiety, resource guarding, maybe you've got multi-dog household struggle right now.
[4:56] SPEAKER_00: Maybe your dog's just so over aroused on a walk that they just can't listen to you and they're chasing everything inside.
[5:03] SPEAKER_00: Like, can I get Tom's help?
[5:05] SPEAKER_00: Um, and the answer is that actually you can, and you can do that by booking a behaviour vet behavior consultation.
[5:12] SPEAKER_00: That's where literally my team give you the plan on how to transform your struggle and get you to that dream that that that made you get a dog in the first place, right?
[5:23] SPEAKER_00: Your world's got smaller and smaller and smaller, and actually it doesn't need to be that way.
[5:27] SPEAKER_00: You just need to reach out for help.
[5:29] SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple of things to say on that.
[5:31] SPEAKER_00: First of all, if you're insured, if your dog's insured with Pet Plan, Kennel Club, Agria, or many pets, we actually do direct claims with them, which means that that's covered by your insurance.
[5:41] SPEAKER_00: So you don't pay out of your pocket, your insurance covers that.
[5:45] SPEAKER_00: And the second thing to say is that we have loads of options if you're insured with another provider, or if your dog's not insured at all, that's also totally fine.
[5:53] SPEAKER_00: We have loads of options that we've developed to make this so accessible for you.
[5:58] SPEAKER_00: Um because we're aware that you've already invested a load of time and a load of money in getting your dog, looking after your dog, caring for your dog.
[6:05] SPEAKER_00: But the last thing we want is for you to have done all that and still not be living the life that you deserve with your dog.
[6:10] SPEAKER_00: And we know we can get you there.
[6:11] SPEAKER_00: So all you need to do is go to the Behave Vet website, and the way to do that is go B-E-H-A.V-E-T.
[6:21] SPEAKER_00: That's behotvet, and it will take you there.
[6:25] SPEAKER_00: Or just Google Behave Vet, right?
[6:27] SPEAKER_00: Um, and you can get scheduled in and we can literally get you booked in for a consultation as soon as possible.
[6:33] SPEAKER_00: We normally can accommodate it within a week, right?
[6:36] SPEAKER_00: So that you can be getting to your dream ASAP.
[6:39] SPEAKER_00: Fourth reason that I've alluded to there, which can be made worse by hormones, is sometimes it's just it is a normal dog behavior that they do little wheeze to communicate, right, to each other.
[6:52] SPEAKER_00: So again, it is a normal dog behavior that can sometimes be inappropriate.
[6:57] SPEAKER_00: Now, what do we do when dogs are marking inappropriately in, say, the home environment?
[7:03] SPEAKER_00: Well, first things first, we need to stop the rehearsal.
[7:06] SPEAKER_00: So the this listener mentions that what his bed is one of the places that that he does this.
[7:12] SPEAKER_00: Sounds like it's a specific bed, and I'd be getting that bed out of the picture.
[7:15] SPEAKER_00: If we've got the option of maybe just not of getting rid of that bed, finding it a new home, um, then I think that would be really useful.
[7:22] SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, and we can think about adding in another bed into the picture down the line.
[7:28] SPEAKER_00: As a general rule, dogs will mark um up things if they're male, or on like beds and things, on textures.
[7:39] SPEAKER_00: And so if I'm wanting to limit rehearsal, what I'd be thinking is I definitely need to get the offending items out of the picture, but also I need to limit access to sorry, I need to also get other things that might be similar to the offending items out of the picture as well.
[7:55] SPEAKER_00: So, for example, rugs and mats, we might want to just go, you know what, let's just pick our battles, get them out of the way for the minute.
[8:02] SPEAKER_00: Um up vertical surfaces, that is um that's another one where obviously we can't get rid of vertical surfaces.
[8:11] SPEAKER_00: But for example, if we were wanting to limit rehearsal, what we might do is we might, for example, have our dog on lead for a period while we're working on this and not allow them near the walls, yeah?
[8:22] SPEAKER_00: So they can't go to the sides of the room to mark.
[8:25] SPEAKER_00: Or if there's a particular area where they like to mark, don't let them go for the time being.
[8:29] SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing.
[8:30] SPEAKER_00: Second thing that we can't rule out is that potentially this isn't caused by some underlying emotion, and that's their coping strategy that they've chosen.
[8:37] SPEAKER_00: Not a sensible coping strategy, but a coping strategy all the same.
[8:41] SPEAKER_00: And so the key thing that I'd be thinking about there is that calmness is incompatible with fear, it's incompatible with frustration, it's incompatible with excitement.
[8:52] SPEAKER_00: Because if you're calm, you can't be calm and excited.
[8:56] SPEAKER_00: You can't be calm and frustrated, you can't be calm and scared because you're being calm, right?
[9:01] SPEAKER_00: And so, what I would do um to deal with that is listen back to all the episodes that we've done in the past on calmness.
[9:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
[9:09] SPEAKER_00: Um, because you're in the hub listener, what's say your name?
[9:12] SPEAKER_00: Um, then watch the specific calmness teaching in the calmness section and do that with your client, right?
[9:19] SPEAKER_00: Because the more we establish calmness, the more we can rule out this being a coping strategy for another emotion.
[9:25] SPEAKER_00: Hormones, hormones are hormones, they're not gonna have caused it, they might be accelerating it slightly.
[9:30] SPEAKER_00: I'm just not even gonna tackle them because we don't want to interfere with them.
[9:34] SPEAKER_00: Um, communication, I guess with communication, again, it doesn't sound like communication is a part of this picture.
[9:41] SPEAKER_00: Obviously, um, if it is, then that must mean that your dog is maybe smelling their own urine and communicating back with their own urine by urinating more.
[9:51] SPEAKER_00: Um, that's kind of taken care of by getting the offending items out of the picture, also using a really good cleaner to get any potential scent or pheromone of um urine out of the picture, because obviously that is gonna put the thought in their mind and potentially trigger that.
[10:09] SPEAKER_00: Final thing that I would say on this to add into this is that effectively, if you teach your dog or grow a choice that they can't make that choice and mark at the same time, they're gonna mark less.
[10:27] SPEAKER_00: Now, what do I mean by that?
[10:29] SPEAKER_00: Well, let's say your dog likes to mark on any kind of textured fabric or bed.
[10:34] SPEAKER_00: Well, if you reward them lots for lying down on their bed, and the only time that they get to be on the bed or get to have access to the bed is lying down on it, and you're making sure that you're you're kind of sticking to that and you're feeding them for lying down on it, you can't lie down and mark at the same time, yeah?
[10:52] SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could, but a dog doesn't do that, okay?
[10:55] SPEAKER_00: So you you're kind of growing incompatible behaviors.
[11:00] SPEAKER_00: Equally, if your dog marks up things, as in up the wall or up the arm of the sofa, well, I'd be thinking I would reward, I would teach them to get on a bed, stay on a bed calmly until released, and that bed would be positioned nowhere near where the temptation might take them.
[11:19] SPEAKER_00: If you can commit to doing all of these things for three weeks, and if you could maybe manage three weeks where you don't get a single urination, a single marking episode, they'll probably never think to do it again.
[11:30] SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
[11:31] SPEAKER_00: But you've got to get that rehearsal, that, you know, as close to 100% rehearsal as possible to get the result.
[11:38] SPEAKER_00: So either go all in or don't bother.
[11:40] SPEAKER_00: Half-hearted is just gonna make this con, you know, grumble on, right?
[11:45] SPEAKER_00: Despite your effort.
[11:46] SPEAKER_00: All in or don't bother.
[11:47] SPEAKER_00: It's one of those situations.
[11:48] SPEAKER_00: And of course, you're gonna bother because they're urinating in your house.
[11:52] SPEAKER_00: Um so I hope that helps, guys.
[11:53] SPEAKER_00: Bit of an unusual topic, but actually, I think it draws in a lot of concepts that we've talked about previously on the podcast.
[11:59] SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next week.

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