What Age Do Dogs Start Lifting Their Leg to Pee?

Generally, male dogs start lifting their leg between seven and nine months old, a clear sign that our dog is entering adolescence. This is the moment it stops being a puppy and becomes a teenage dog.

Let's look in detail at why this curious behavior happens and what it means.

When Do They Start Lifting Their Leg?

Regardless of size and breed, generally this behavior starts around seven months of age, though some dogs may start around nine or even ten months old.

When they start lifting their leg to urinate, they don't do it consistently. In other words, they might do it only occasionally, while continuing to squat with their back legs to pee the rest of the time, the way females do.

That said, over time, mainly from around a year and a half old, it'll become much more common, and squatting like females do will become the exception.

We should never worry if our dog doesn't lift its leg to pee, since dogs are guided by comfort and territory marking. If they don't need to mark and feel more comfortable, they'll keep peeing the way females do, and that shouldn't be a problem at all.

Why Do They Lift Their Leg to Pee?

There are many theories about why a dog lifts its leg to pee, though the most widespread one is that they do it to communicate better. Yes, that's right... dogs don't just pee to empty their bladder — they pee to leave signals for other dogs.

When a dog pees, it leaves its scent in that spot — every dog has a different scent, comparable to fingerprints in humans. This way, every dog can smell who's peed in a certain spot, whether it's a male or female, whether it's someone they know or a stranger, and even the size of the dog that peed.

Larger dogs cover a bigger area when peeing by lifting their leg, which indicates the dog's size. Males and females release different pheromones along with their urine, which other dogs can detect to figure out their sex.

You've surely seen your dog pee right on top of other dogs' urine many times — it's a form of communication between them. Sometimes it's to mark territory, indicating that tree or park belongs to them (that's just how dogs are...), and other times it's simply a greeting, leaving their scent mark.

That said, the most common case is peeing over a female in heat's urine. It's a form of communication between our dog and the female in heat, whether they know each other or not. By peeing over a female in heat's urine, our dog is, in a way, courting her.

Why Do Females Pee Squatting?

Females are, in a way, more civilized than males when it comes to peeing everywhere just to mark territory. They don't have that need as strongly as males, though they can still mark if the urine belongs to another female.

Females pee squatting due to the absence of a penis — if they lifted their leg the way male dogs do, they'd likely end up peeing on themselves, so it's much more comfortable to squat and pee calmly.

Some females do lift their leg to pee, but that's nothing to worry about. They simply do it by imitation, from seeing other male dogs pee — something that usually goes away in a short time, returning to their usual way of peeing.

Only when a female is in heat can her behavior change quite a bit when it comes to marking territory, peeing much more frequently than usual. But that's completely normal, precisely because of the heat itself.