One of my bonded pair peed on his "brother". What's up with that?

The pee-r here is also, unfortunately, a poop eater. A friend of mine often watches the dogs for me and was standing outside making sure that everyone did their business before letting everyone back in (both our Cavs are avid indoor pottiers). When my little Mr. Copraphage saw his brother was "taking care of business" he rather excitedly scampered over to... enjoy. So, as is our protocal, my friend called out his name as means to stop the him from "snacking". As is usual, he looked rather dejected and roamed the yard a bit during which time his brother, having finished his business, proceeded to take a well earned Cavalier rest on the patio. That was when Mr. Copraphage turned into Mr. Golden Shower. He went up to his brother and smelled him all over and then hiked his leg and proceeded to let loose. His brother quickly jumped up and ran off (not surprising really). All of this of course left me with the following questions...

First, is this just simple dominance or territorial behavior and second, if that is so then is there anything I can do to help ensure it won't happen again?

I know that King Charles' personal spaniels were notorious for having bad potty habits, but really I don't need that trait in mine!

Bath the one who was peed on to hopefully remove the scent... though what with I don't know!

I'd also suggest taking them out separately. Hopefully it's just a phase and once they get out of the habit of doing it it shouldn't be an issue. I can advise further from personal experience since I have girls!

Sorry, I had to laugh reading this
What about taking them out every hour, on the hour seperately until they get the hang of pooing and peeing!!
I had to do this with my dog as he would walk for an hour then come back in and poo in the bathroom, but we just started again with the hourly business and he soon picked it up.
Hopefully they will grow out of it :xfngr:

Paddy is a poop eater if he gets the chance and gets quite aggressive if you try to stop him.

He often gets piddle on his head as he follows were Toby is piddling to do it there while he is still doing it!!!!!!

What is a 'bonded pair'? Most dogs if they have more than one in a home are 'bonded' -- eg friends. I've just never heard this term used to identify a pair of dogs and wonder if you are indicating some overly intense behaviour as that may be part of what is beginning to produce some problems? (for example this concerns me: "both our Cavs are avid indoor pottiers" -- :yikes Why? Countering with avid housetraining and supervision means they should never have the opportunity-- see end of this post and then the link that follows -- you don't want this to progress any further).

Poop eating is best dealt with by removing the poop immediately. Next step is also to have a very good 'look' command and 'leave it' -- a well trained dog will leave it on command and ignore even delicacies like dog or cat poop.

Peeing on another dog is pretty common. I wouldn't worry about it. If the dogs are still intact, this type of marking including of another dog is going to be a lot more common. But either way, marking is a training issue to be dealt with as with housetraining.

I wouldn't worry about what it might signify -- 'dominance' is a very overestimated and misunderstood concept. Most likely the other dog had an interesting smell and the first was simply 'marking' him because he was conveniently lying down. Mine have done this kind of thing when still quite young -- 8 months or so when they start lifting legs and 'practicing'. Sometimes boys get excited and mark something that smells like other dogs, or interesting or provocative. Casey, one of my rescue dogs, marked my leg and shoe about 3 minutes after I met him. He *definitely* was not trying to indicate his 'dominance' -- I just smelled like a lot of dogs and he was really excited about being in a training hall full of dogs and my leg happened to be a convenient, upright object to mark. :lol:

A lot of times, overly analysing why dogs do things (when the answer much of the time is, 'who knows?' :lol leads to some very negative and inappropriate training approaches to curb 'dominance' when actually the dog is simply fearful or happy or playful... and the dog gains a new set of unwanted behaviours for being punished for something that was never a sign of misbehaviour in the first place.

How old are these dogs? Were they littermates? Are you giving them a lot of separate time -- so they are not overly bonded and only ever around each other? They need daily time where they are not together, training where they are not together, etc. One reason for peeing and the housetraining problems may be that they are not paying much attention to you or other people, and interacting more with each other. Not leaving them together all the time would also undoubtedly curb the poop eating. As I am sure you have found, two of the same age at the same time is extra work as they need daily separate but equal time.