Hi Everyone!
I am new here and a new Cavalier owner. In fact, this is my first dog ever. So I have a lot to learn and its all completely new to me. Everything I know about dogs is from what I've been reading in books and on the internet. And every source seems to be different.
Our cavalier is a tri colored female from a very mellow mother. I'm told by the breeder that she will be very mellow as well, which is a big reason why we picked her. We have three daughters and we're a pretty quiet family so we knew we couldn't handle a high energy dog. She is now 20 weeks old and we've had her for about four weeks.
She is very very submissive. For the first few days that we had her, she submissively urinated just about every time she saw us. That was quite worrisome but it stopped once she got to know us better and hadn't submissively urinated in the past three weeks.
She's been doing well in her potty training too. But last week, she had an accident (first time in almost two weeks). I think I reacted too strongly and scared her. I yelled no, picked her up, and took her outside to her potty place. I put her down and told her to "go potty", but she just layed flat to the ground and looked scared out of her mind. When we came in, she immediately went into her crate. For the rest of the day, I had to work very hard to get her to come to me. I thought she was back to normal, but I noticed over the weekend and this morning too that she is once again submissively urinating.
We've continued with the potty training as normal. When she goes outside, we praise her and give her a treat. And she hasn't had an accident in the house since the incident last week.
What can I do about the submissive urination and how do I correct a dog that is so very sensitive and submissive? I do not want to scar her for life (and I hope I haven't already done that) but I fear I might spoil her if I am too soft with her. I just don't know how to be firm without being "scary" to her!
Thanks!!
I am new here and a new Cavalier owner. In fact, this is my first dog ever. So I have a lot to learn and its all completely new to me. Everything I know about dogs is from what I've been reading in books and on the internet. And every source seems to be different.
Our cavalier is a tri colored female from a very mellow mother. I'm told by the breeder that she will be very mellow as well, which is a big reason why we picked her. We have three daughters and we're a pretty quiet family so we knew we couldn't handle a high energy dog. She is now 20 weeks old and we've had her for about four weeks.
She is very very submissive. For the first few days that we had her, she submissively urinated just about every time she saw us. That was quite worrisome but it stopped once she got to know us better and hadn't submissively urinated in the past three weeks.
She's been doing well in her potty training too. But last week, she had an accident (first time in almost two weeks). I think I reacted too strongly and scared her. I yelled no, picked her up, and took her outside to her potty place. I put her down and told her to "go potty", but she just layed flat to the ground and looked scared out of her mind. When we came in, she immediately went into her crate. For the rest of the day, I had to work very hard to get her to come to me. I thought she was back to normal, but I noticed over the weekend and this morning too that she is once again submissively urinating.
We've continued with the potty training as normal. When she goes outside, we praise her and give her a treat. And she hasn't had an accident in the house since the incident last week.
What can I do about the submissive urination and how do I correct a dog that is so very sensitive and submissive? I do not want to scar her for life (and I hope I haven't already done that) but I fear I might spoil her if I am too soft with her. I just don't know how to be firm without being "scary" to her!
Thanks!!