For instance, I went to the bathroom today. The dog followed me in, and I kicked her out. Then, when I got out of the bathroom I noticed she had peed on the floor.

Later that day, some friends are leaving the house. Two seconds later the dog goes and pees on the carpet again.

I am giving the dog plenty of opportunities to go outside. I take him out 2 times every hour. She goes just about each time I take her out. I'm so confused...

I don't think dogs will pee in spite of you. Have you taken her to the vet to rule out a possible health issue such as a urinary infection or something like that? How much water is she drinking, that sounds like an awful lot of urination...a little too much. I would get her looked at a vet first and foremost to rule out medical reasons.

That's so funny because I was thinking the exact same thing today. My puppy cannot stand to be outside for more than 30 seconds so when I make him go outside to pee he kind of gets irritated. First thing he does when we get back inside is almost drink up his entire bowl. I swear he flashed me a look as if to say "just wait until you're not looking cus I'm gonna pay you back."

I disagree; my 8 month puppy, Zephyr, is fully house-trained and lets me know when he wants/needs to go outside to use the restroom (and he takes care of that every time he's outside). However, if he does something bad, like biting or something else that he KNOWS he isn't supposed to do, and gets scolded, then he will walk a few steps away, face me (making eye contact and everything), and urinate on the carpet. If that isn't being spiteful, then I don't know what is, haha. Anyway, he isn't doing it nearly as much as he was, because he's realized that that isn't acceptable behavior, but I'm still working on breaking that habit of his. Good luck with training your dog!

~Jenelle

It's so funny how people react to dogs bodily functions. Dogs do not think pee and poo are anything gross, that's strictly a human thing. Actually dogs use pee and poo as communication sources. Since they don't get the gross factor they can't be doing it for spite but rather communication. They maybe frustrated, bored, trying to get attention, or trying to show ownership but they have no concept of spite.

They can however be conditioned to knowing a particular action gets them attention, positive or negative. Whenever one of mine had an accident (before my dog door), I just took them outside with a calm demeanor and cleaned the mess up without them being present.

I have to agree with Brian here. Spite is a human emotion, not a canine one. It's our own fault for attributing human emotions to dogs when they don't particularly have them, at least not on their own. They can feed off of our emotions and they know happy and sad, but they don't understand much beyond that.

Your pup wasn't doing anything out of spite. He was continuing trying to get your attention. Next time something like that happens, I challenge you to take a step back and look at the situation. Why was he biting or doing the initial act that he "knows he's not supposed to?" What is he trying to tell you? Because in all likelihood, he got scolded and shut down, so he just turned around to do something else he KNOWS will elicit a reaction out of you.

My guess? Your pup had energy that was not being expended so he was looking for you to play with him and help him get that energy out. I bet if he was getting exercised more, it wouldn't have happened, or if you had scolded him, then turned around and engaged in an acceptable playful activity, the peeing wouldn't have happened.

Koda wrote:

I have to agree with Brian here. Spite is a human emotion, not a canine one. It's our own fault for attributing human emotions to dogs when they don't particularly have them, at least not on their own. They can feed off of our emotions and they know happy and sad, but they don't understand much beyond that.

I agree,spite is definitely a human emotion. I know a lot of times it seems Luke they are being spiteful, but they really are not. Think about wolves or other wild canine. Do you think a wolf would go do something spiteful to his pack mate because he wouldn't play with him or share food?

Dogs focus on which actions will get your attention, and unfortunately for us humans, peeing is one of them. Dogs learn quickly that peeing in the house gets them attention. They don't care that the attention is negative.

As was stated before, remaining calm and cleaning up the mess without the dog present is really your best option.