How do I get my dog to stop peeing on my trees?

June 8, 2006 4:32 PM

Why does my dog have a thing for my cedar trees?

We have a lovely 4 year old male Border Collie with what seems like a very large bladder. He has peed on all eight of my 2 year old cedar trees and has managed to kill one. The other 7 have shed their needles at the bottom but look ok the rest of the way up. The other problem is that these trees surround our deck and the smell of urine is quite noticable when it gets warm out, making it difficult to sit out there in the early evening. Is there anyway to get rid of the smell? Getting rid of the dog is not an option!

posted by shemacg to pets & animals (6 comments total)

Cedar is quite fragrant. It may be that your dog is trying to overwhelm the scent of the cedar tree with his own scent, mistaking it for that of another dog whom he believes is marking territory that is rightfully his.

Have you considered using a dog repellant near the trees? These go by names like Doggie-B-Gon.

Another option is aversive therapy, such as squirting him with a water gun when he pees on the tree, but male canine marking behavior is so heavily ingrained that I doubt this could have much success.

You could cordon off an area surrounding the trunks with chicken wire. That might keep him far enough from the trunks that he wouldn't smell whatever's bugging him.
posted by ikkyu2 at 4:55 PM on June 8, 2006

Our dogs pee on every single post of the veranda that rings our house and we just rinse it with the hose 2-3 times a day. We have 3 males and it's a real piss-fest as they spend all day and all night peeing on top of the last dogs pee. The smell gets rank quick if we don't rinse, but plain old H2O does a great job on it.

Male dogs pee to mark their territory and there isn'y a whole lot you can do about it, short of protecting things are can be damaged. The chicken wire suggested by ikkyu2 is your best bet.
posted by buggzzee23 at 7:43 PM on June 8, 2006

Doesn't the aroma of cedar mimic ammonia? Cedar bedding is not good for hamsters and such. Pee is full of ammonia, of course--maybe he mistakes the cedar for a pee-ed on tree?

Or maybe other dogs are peeing on the trees and he's trying to keep up, marking his territory?

This sounds possible too:

Cedar is quite fragrant. It may be that your dog is trying to overwhelm the scent of the cedar tree with his own scent, mistaking it for that of another dog whom he believes is marking territory that is rightfully his.

Maybe he hates the cedar smell. Bugs hate it.
posted by Shane at 8:14 PM on June 8, 2006

A humane electric fence power supply, a few wraps of wire around the trunk, and your dog completing the circuit, wil discover profound respect for your cedars! It is not just dogs, at Bohemia Grove there are signs near the redwoods,"gentlemen no pee pee here"
posted by hortense at 12:33 AM on June 9, 2006

I would venture to add that cedar is often excessively fragrant. Dogs having that particular olfactory accuity, I would assume there is some relation to its (the tree(')s(')) odor.
posted by vanoakenfold at 3:34 AM on June 9, 2006

Thanks for the help. I will try and find the doggie b gone first if I can find it, and then the chicken wire. I have another dog (female) who doesn't pee on the trees and it wouldn't be fair to be zapping her too when she's not the problem.
posted by shemacg at 11:10 AM on June 9, 2006