Ever wondered why dogs tend to urine mark every lamp post in the neighborhood every time you take it for walks? Urine marking is a form of scent marking that most mammals do in one form or another.  Dogs leave scent marks for the purpose of letting other dogs in the area know about their presence and is often done so on upright objects such as lamp posts or bushes. They might even urinate on another dog’s droppings in order to overwrite that dog’s scent mark. So why is this important?

Urine marking is mainly done by male dogs and most dog owners with untrained male dogs might agree, that their dogs tend to scent mark the household as well, and this can be quite a problem - this habit can be easily cured through proper dog training though.

The more dominant the male dog, the higher amounts of testosterone it has and the stronger the urge to want to claim its territory by urine marking certain areas. An immediate territory might be a place of living (your home for instance), and your garden. A dog is an extremely territorial animal and will attempt to claim ownership of a territory as well as defend it.

By studying dog ancestry, we can see that dogs are animals that travel in packs. They do not normally dwell in one fixed location but remain mobile, therefor they will claim whatever area they are in as their territory by urine marking. This is why when you take your dog for walks, it constantly places it scent down wherever it goes.

You can easily tell the difference between urine marking and actual urination by the amount of urine that’s discharged. Urine marking only uses a small amount of urine and it usually happens after a dog has examined the area by sniffing out other dogs scents - it usually urinates over this scent when found.

After scent marking an area, a dog will normally also start digging the ground next to where it has urinated. It does this to create a visual sign to tell other dogs that its scent has been left and to assert its dominance of the area.

Younger male dogs who have not reached sexual maturity will not scent mark so often and even if left, their markings have little traces of dominance. This changes however, once the dog has become sexually mature.

This form of urine marking is important to dogs of all kinds as it claiming the right to an area gives them confidence to be in there. Female dogs sometimes do leave scents as well to notify the males of their sexual status. Whenever a new dog arrives in the neighborhood, the resident dogs will usually urine mark more often to re-establish their ownership to the area.