Having dogs that are not potty trained and carpet is going to be a nightmare. Now if you have 2 male dogs and carpet… that’s even worse. It’s common for pet owners to forget the natural instincts and behaviors that dogs are accustom to.

Urine marking is very normal, instinctive dog behavior, mostly in males, but sometimes found among female dogs too. Dogs do not consider elimination to be an insult. In fact, the dog who marks may well be stepping up to offer his life if necessary to protect his pack. Dogs do not actually understand house training. In nature, urine marking provides boundaries for a pack. Dogs are pack animals. They form separate social groups to cooperate for survival, which includes hunting for food as well as rearing their pups. A pack has a territory it will defend from other canines, which helps spread the animals out over a further range for a better chance that all of them will be able to find enough to eat. Stop thinking that your pet is being mean, spiteful, or stupid for ruining your belongings. On the contrary it’s more likely fear and willingness to fight to protect their sacred space.

Dogs can gather a lot of information from urine scents. Among dogs, it can help keep the peace. We don’t fully comprehend everything that dogs can detect from urine scents, its complex. What we do know is they can certainly tell a male from a female, a neutered dog from one who is not, a female in heat or about to go into heat, and if a dog is sick or well. Just as a human would react to a sight according to their past experiences with that sight, a dog’s reaction to a particular scent is heavily influenced by the dog’s past experiences.

If your household has carpet, obviously dogs are going to prefer to urinate on carpet over hardwood floors. Carpet is soft, and closely resembles grass. Also, cleaning pet urine completely out of the carpet is more difficult. Depending upon how long the urine has settled into the carpet, it will pull down into the bottom layers. Once urine has reached and absorbed into the carpet padding, the only way to entirely eliminate any signs of pet urine, the carpet padding must be replaced. If any traces of urine or dog pheromones are still remaining on the carpet, it’s only natural for a dog to continue to mark that area.

Ironically people tend to get smaller dogs because they want a cleaner house. If easy house training and minimal indoor urinating and defecation is a priority for you, then do not get a tiny male dog. Smaller dogs are much harder to potty train, especially males.

Many small male dogs will present some degree of challenge with urine marking, but you can and should keep your home free and clean of pet stains and odor with good management.