Marking = confidence or anxiety?

[OnceInAWeil]

The title pretty much says it all. I've heard people say that a lot of marking means a dog lacks confidence and that marking can be a displacement behavior. I've also heard Trish King (though I wasn't too impressed with the DVD) say that marking means the dog is confident. I wanted to ask the people here if you think frequent marking is usually confidence, usually stress or a lack of confidence, or if you think it is highly contextual.

[jacksdad]

in my opinion...answer is yes.

I think it all depends. you have to take in the whole picture. The dog. The environment. what is going on, what isn't etc, etc, etc.

and after you have done all that....toss this into the mix. for all we think we know about marking, there is orders of magnitude more that we haven't a clue about.

So...Yes, I think in some contexts it could be a sign of confidence, in others it could be stress/anxiety. In others, it is simply going pee, in others its just a simple mark for whatever reason dogs mark.

In Jack's case....he is NOT what I would label a "highly confident" dog and he used to mark a lot. If I had to hypothesize. I would actually think low confident dogs mark more than confident dogs. but I have NO data to back that up. just my opinion based on what I have learned and observed to date.

There is actually someone who is doing studies on this. Dr. McConnell talked about it in one of her recent seminars. I am anxious to read the results. there is more going on than we think.

[Sabrina]

Fascinating topic!

or if you think it is highly contextual.

For my dog, I'd say "highly contextual". Charley marks a lot when we're out walking. He's not a generally confident dog (though we've made great progress with his fear-reactivity) - watching Charley's body language when he's marking, sometimes he looks anxious (worried face/tense body) , sometimes highly interested in a scent he was just sniffing (these times he usually tries to pee in exactly the "right" spot!), and sometimes he looks relaxed ("eh, whatever, think I'll pee here").

If I had to hypothesize. I would actually think low confident dogs mark more than confident dogs. but I have NO data to back that up. just my opinion based on what I have learned and observed to date.

Simply based on my own experience, I'd agree with that. Charley doesn't look worried the majority of the times that he marks, but the "worried look while marking"/"I simply have to mark right here and right now!" episodes do happen regularly.

[gwd]

highly contextual.

this gets my vote!

my male is supremely confident. he's one of those bullet proof type dogs if the apocalypse happened he'd be fine provided there were snacks for viewing the end of the world. .......and yes, he's a marker. not around the house.........at home he doens't feel the need to pee on multiple bushes. he has his spots towards the canyon where he goes but it's not at all obsessive. on walks, OMG......anything over 6" high is deserving of a good watering.

baby girl is not very confident and she does multiple pee's right when we get to agility class.......it's as if she''s more comfortable when the place has her smell. .........we don't ever let the dogs pee on the course but she has her areas around the fenced part.

[tylerthegiant]

I would say Lucas is a confident dog, at least according the criteria I know to use to evaluate it. He's a major marker, but then he lived on a ranch where he kept the coyotes off the property before I got him and my guess he did it mostly by marking, and every once in a while a good chase. So I think he thinks it's his JOB to mark stuff. Got to keep the coyotes out of the neighborhood.

[Nettle]

Highly contextual to me as well.

Bitches coming into oestrus mark a lot
Underconfident dogs mark 'home' but tend not to mark so much out of doors
Underconfident dogs that live with other dogs tend to mark lots out of the home environment
Confrontational dogs mark here, there and everywhere
Teenage dogs that have just discovered it isn't for stirring their tea with mark everything everywhere they can reach
My very confident 'zen' dog will always mark over the muck left by one dog she really loathes but ignores all other heaps (this is out in the countryside where people don't have to clear up as long as the muck isn't on the track).
Lots of other variables. That keep-out-coyotes marking is one I wouldn't have thought of, so thanks for that

I'll look forward to seeing that research when it is finished.

[bendog]

I think (purely based on my made up opinion, no actual evidence) that confident bitches mark more. Sasha marks a LOT on walks, poppy only tends to mark on pavement walks - and then only when we go further than usual so onto different roads. Around the block she sometimes won't even pee

Dogs I think it's maybe the other way round, and the under confident ones mark more. Ben and Charlie do both mark a lot, but Ben is the most obsessive about it (he wont move from the spot until he has marked where he wants to mark and he absolutely HAS to mark over anywhere the girls pee)

Then you have the dogs that won't pee at all except at home, and the dogs that are so overexcited by their environment that they spend the whole time pinging about on the end of the lead and don't have time to mark anywhere


Bendog was always nervous even as a pup, and used to do the peeing when visitors came thing, and used to mark the sofa if we went to someone else's house when he was younger but he stopped once he grew up.

[Erica]

Opal never marked anything until a couple months after we got Marble. Now she does mark at a reasonable rate - every couple hundred feet. When we're running, she'll only mark during a walk break, or if she smells something REALLY interesting.

I'm not sure why she marks - she's not under- or over-confident in my book, just comfortable as long as normal things are happening. After I discovered BAT she became more confident around new/strange things, but some things still put her on edge (sewer grates/storm drains mostly).

I think "it depends" is the best simple answer to this question, hehe.

[OnceInAWeil]

Makes sense that as with many behaviors, context is super important.

In the BATting 1000 DVD, Grisha Stewart mentioned that somebody did a study showing that peeing/marking was a great stress reliever for dogs, so she encouraged students to let their dogs pee/mark in the middle of BAT set-ups. And I think it was Emmabeth who said something about how going potty signals to other dogs/animals "HERE I AMMMMM" and that is why some dogs won't go in a new setting at first.

[bendog]

Patricia McConnell also once pointed out that marking is a great way of communicating. Her example was dogs entering dog parks and getting swamped by other dogs wanting to sniff will sometimes go and mark and then the dog can sniff the pee and it takes some of the attention away from the new dog.

[jacksdad]

Patricia McConnell also once pointed out that marking is a great way of communicating. Her example was dogs entering dog parks and getting swamped by other dogs wanting to sniff will sometimes go and mark and then the dog can sniff the pee and it takes some of the attention away from the new dog.

After hear this from her (she was actually relating some early findings and preliminary conclusions from that study I mentioned) I started noticing it more. I remember seeing it before, but it didn't "click" that it was deliberate.

[emmabeth]

Yup, alllll about the context.

My Dilly dog will hardly ever **** his leg in public, particularly not in really busy places. Once he gets used to a particular route, he will though, but these tend to be much more 'I need to empty my bladder and I saved it for JUST here' type things...

Rocky is quite a confident chap outdoors, hes had his rucks and scraps (not round here but generally, as a younger dog) he is pretty confident he can handle himself and he likes to wee up everything when out, and the higher the better. Given the chance he wil also reverse up tree stumps to poo on them nice and high up!

As a younger dog though I once took him to dogsit a friends shepherds, and the male shepherd there took Rocky down a peg or two, HE was boss dog and Rocky knew it. Rocky would NOT toilet in their yard AT ALL. Dilly 'I am one of lifes little worms' dog - he quite happily did poo and wee in Oscardogs yard! But then, Oscar and Dilly had no issues, Dilly accepted Oscar was 'the man' and didn't question it, thus Oscar had absolutely no problem with it and Dill could pee and poo howsoever he liked.

The old orange dog was a champion scent marker, currently the only ***** I have owned who cocked her leg, and again, purposely so, as high up as she could over other dogs marks. Very much 'I WAS HERE, DON'T YOU FORGET IT'...

None of these have ever scent marked in the house though - but Errol, he's really only JUST (at 4ish!) stopped scent marking in the house, and thats since he was neutered and the tension between him and Rocky has vanished. Like Dill, he barely ever cocked his leg outdoors except for an actual wee!

[jodieohdoh]

I'm finding this thread very interesting. Ruaraidh is usually a calm wee guy in the house, if there's nothing doing he'll curl up and sleep quite happily and seems to be housebroken because he does poo outside (we have a dog door so he has free access to the garden). He does mark in the house sometimes though and it seems to always be when we're in the house but not where he is. If I sleep a little too long (one of those rare occasions when I can ignore his whiny "Here I am, you forgot about me" barking!), I'll come down to a puddle. I was playing my flute in the dining room yesterday, he wasn't impressed with that. He went suspiciously quiet and I came through to see why, and he'd wee'd against some washing which was drying in front of the radiator.

I had one lovely instance where he had wee'd upstairs in the landing, and I discovered it when it dripped on my head as I was walking downstairs That one was no mystery - he's not allowed upstairs and he took the opportunity to make it his own when he had it!

I'm not really that worried about it - he doesn't do it as much now as he did when we first got him, I'm guessing he will grow out of it eventually... Just find the whole subject quite interesting.

[doggiedad]

i think marking is dog communication and it's not something
to worry about as long as they do it outside.

[jodieohdoh]

Very insightful contribution, thanks for that.