It’s important to remember that urination serves two purposes for dogs—elimination and marking. Both male and female dogs scent mark, but the behavior is more pervasive in males. Dogs who are marking preferentially urinate on vertical surfaces. If they urinate high up on that surface, the urine can flow downward covering a greater area, which leaves a stronger message to anyone who subsequently passes by. Peeing up high may even make a dog seem bigger than he actually is. This is probably why the elevate posture is so popular among males.
It’s important to note how many peeing positions are perfectly normal for both male and female dogs. Which ones they use depends on many factors including the dog’s location, age, sex, and possibly their reproductive status. The only time to be concerned is when a dog that usually pees in one position switches to another. This could be a sign of pain or another medical problem that needs to be addressed.
Research supports this hypothesis in female dogs. A paper published in 2004 looked at the urinary behaviors of six spayed and six intact female Jack Russell Terriers while they were being walked close to and further away from their “home area.” The scientists found that when away from their home area, these dogs were more likely to urinate frequently and aim their urine at objects in comparison to when they were walked close to home. The authors concluded “urination in female dogs does not function solely in elimination, but that it also has a significant role in scent marking…”
Conventional wisdom says that when dogs pee, males raise a leg and females squat. In reality, however, dogs have many more options than that. Believe it or not, scientists have performed a number of studies into exactly what postures dogs take to pee. Let’s look at a variety of peeing positions in dogs, and whether they can tell us anything about a dog’s health, well-being, or what’s going on inside of their heads.
An old study from the 1970s identified 12 positions that 60 intact male and 53 intact female adult beagles used to pee:
The Role of Gender in Dog Peeing
While gender isn’t a foundation or basis for any particular behavior in any species, in the dog world, some traits are clear for each gender.
Since peeing for dogs is sometimes thought of as sexually dimorphic behavior, male dogs are known for lifting their leg to pee, while females are most often known for squatting.
These patterns are also seen in other animals and humans based predominately on our anatomical differences.
First Off, How Many Peeing Positions Are There in Dogs?
Believe it or not, dogs peeing positions have been studied in-depth as far back as 1973. Courtesy of researchers Sprague and Anisko, who studied how many urinating postures were found to be exhibited by dogs of either gender, we now know that dogs may display as many as a dozen peeing postures.
Here is the list of them:
As the saying goes, a picture is worth one thousand words, so below you can see what these dog peeing positions exactly look like. Just dont try these positions at home!
The 12 elimination patterns exhibited by dogs.
How to do Bladder Expressions on Your Pet
If your dog is straining to urinate or has bloody or pink tinged urine you may be seeing signs of cystitis. This is a symptom that should not be ignored. It is important that you observe your dog urinating on a frequent basis. You are the window to your dogs health and your observations are very important to us.
Cystitis in dogs is not uncommon and has a number of different causes. Our doctors feel that determining the cause of cystitis is very important not only with treatment but also with prevention.
One of the most important considerations is that cystitis in dogs is painful. The quicker we deal with it the quicker your dog returns to normal health and comfort.