Why do they hike their legs when they take a piss? My neighbor's dog used to squat, now he hikes the leg up on a bush...why do the male species do this? Is it just God, dog designed DNA or is it learned behavior?

elevated piss scent = big dawg on the block

Hell...I hike my leg when I piss....all males do.....don't you?

It's a throw back from the Wolf ancestors of the dog.
The dominant animal raises their leg to pee, when marking.
It' not just a male dog thing, although male dogs will do it most frequently. Our female is the dominant dog and she raises her leg to pee too, when marking territory(on a walk through the woods for example). In wild wolf packs there are some packs that will have female Alphas(pack leaders) with no male Alphas. They breed with the Betas. This is not the majority but it has been documented, most recently in Yellowstone. It often happens when the Alpha male is killed or disabled. These dominant females will raise their leg to urinate when marking territory.

Dogs have such refined noses they can tell when an other animal has marked with urine, whether it was another dog or not, and who knows what other information. That's why they often mark over the previous marker, to stake out their range. In europe they are using dogs to smell human urine to diagnose certain illnesses that are very hard to detect in their early stages, extremely refined sense of smell like a catalog of information, so to speak. They can even detect specific metabolites of drugs in the urine.

When you see then "Scratch the ground" after marking with urine, it's because some dogs still have scent glands in their feet as do wolves, and this marks with yet another scent by expressing the scent from the glands when they "scratch the ground'.

Did you know that Wolf and domestic dog DNA is identical? They are all basically the same family, it's only the wild behaviours that have been bred out, along with appearance and personality. Some instinctive behaviours will remain.


Read some of the works of David Mech, probably the most knowledgable Wolf biologist ever to exist. It's fascinating stuff.

I can tell you exactly why!

An old dog of mine broke his leg once and had to wear a cast that prevented his hind leg from moving away from his body.

When we brought him home from the vet, he walk over to a tree and stood there. He tried to lift the hurt leg and couldn't. He shifted his weight and tried to lift his good leg, but the hurt leg would slip on the ground. This shifting weight went back and forth until he finally stopped and just stood there .

He let her rip and it went all the way up his chest, past his neck and dripped off his ear. He stood there for what seemed like ten minutes totally humiliating himself.

So the bottom line is...they lift their leg so they don't piss all over themselves.

Quoted: Why do they hike their legs when they take a piss? My neighbor's dog used to squat, now he hikes the leg up on a bush...why do the male species do this? Is it just God, dog designed DNA or is it learned behavior?

Because only bitches squat to pee.

Quoted: I can tell you exactly why! An old dog of mine broke his leg once and had to wear a cast that prevented his hind leg from moving away from his body. When we brought him home from the vet, he walk over to a tree and stood there. He tried to lift the hurt leg and couldn't. He shifted his weight and tried to lift his good leg, but the hurt leg would slip on the ground. This shifting weight went back and forth until he finally stopped and just stood there . He let her rip and it went all the way up his chest, past his neck and dripped off his ear. He stood there for what seemed like ten minutes totally humiliating himself. So the bottom line is...they lift their leg so they don't piss all over themselves.

Also, a lot of male dogs won't lift their leg up if they aren't around other males, it seems like a trait they learn from other males.

We used to have a huge male Great Dane, and it was just him and his mother.  He never lifted his leg up, he would pee just like his mother would.  My grandmother who used to breed Great Danes noticed the same thing.  If a male is in a litter by himself, a lot of times he would never lift his leg up, but have two or more males and they lift their leg up and pee on everything!

My dog is nicknamed "Peeleg".

My female dog squats down to pee, the lifts one back leg off the ground. So she's doing the 3 legged squat to pee. Go figure that one.

_DR got it right.

Also, dogs/wolves can use it to identify the alpha dogs from a distance...so if a wolf is observing another pack of wolves he can spot the Alphas visually.

A dog lifts his leg to piss, to take his ass outta gear so he doesn't shit!!!

Sometimes mine keeps all four paws on the ground and leans forward. It's like he's fine tuning the point of impact on the ground. I haven't figured this one out yet. It's a hoot to watching him get into a pissing contest with the dog on the other side of the fence. "Oh yeah, I'll see your squirt and raise you one."

For the same reason I piss in a sink.  It feels good.

Quoted: Quoted: I can tell you exactly why! An old dog of mine broke his leg once and had to wear a cast that prevented his hind leg from moving away from his body. When we brought him home from the vet, he walk over to a tree and stood there. He tried to lift the hurt leg and couldn't. He shifted his weight and tried to lift his good leg, but the hurt leg would slip on the ground. This shifting weight went back and forth until he finally stopped and just stood there . He let her rip and it went all the way up his chest, past his neck and dripped off his ear. He stood there for what seemed like ten minutes totally humiliating himself. So the bottom line is...they lift their leg so they don't piss all over themselves.

Sorry to laugh at your dogs plight, but our Weimaraner is having a problem as well. Poor fellow, is 10 months old and was getting out of control. SO we had his nuts cut, just the thought of that makes me hurt. anyway turns out it was a good thing, while they were performing the surgery they discovered one of his jewels hadnt dropped down and was stuck way up inside his stomach cavity, and it would have turned into cancer if they hadnt removed it, so they said, any way  so they had to cut him open all the way to his breast bone to get it out. Simple 80 dollar operation turned into a 500 dollar operation, well the sad part is, when they were sewing him back up, they got his "man hood" sewed on a little crooked, so now instead of squating and letting it fly, he squats and pees all over his front leg, then looks up at me, with that look, "it all your fault you $%&&$$&*%%!!!!!, makes me feel terrible, so I will be glad when he starts to hike his leg, of course now, when he hikes, it will either go way up in the air, or straight down in the ground, hope he figures it out.lol.

For a similar demonstration, don't sit down the next time you need to take a shit. Even if you had never seen someone else do it before, it wouldn't take you long to learn the cleanest and best way to piss and shit. Same with dogs.

Quoted: Sorry to laugh at your dogs plight, but our Weimaraner is having a problem as well. Poor fellow, is 10 months old and was getting out of control. SO we had his nuts cut, just the thought of that makes me hurt. anyway turns out it was a good thing, while they were performing the surgery they discovered one of his jewels hadnt dropped down and was stuck way up inside his stomach cavity, and it would have turned into cancer if they hadnt removed it, so they said, any way  so they had to cut him open all the way to his breast bone to get it out. Simple 80 dollar operation turned into a 500 dollar operation, well the sad part is, when they were sewing him back up, they got his "man hood" sewed on a little crooked, so now instead of squating and letting it fly, he squats and pees all over his front leg, then looks up at me, with that look, "it all your fault you $%&&$$&*%%!!!!!, makes me feel terrible, so I will be glad when he starts to hike his leg, of course now, when he hikes, it will either go way up in the air, or straight down in the ground, hope he figures it out.lol.

Now THAT is funny.  I think you owe your dog corrective surgery.

Quoted: For the same reason I piss in a sink.  It feels good.

have you tried it with the dishes still in?

Quoted: Quoted: Sorry to laugh at your dogs plight, but our Weimaraner is having a problem as well. Poor fellow, is 10 months old and was getting out of control. SO we had his nuts cut, just the thought of that makes me hurt. anyway turns out it was a good thing, while they were performing the surgery they discovered one of his jewels hadnt dropped down and was stuck way up inside his stomach cavity, and it would have turned into cancer if they hadnt removed it, so they said, any way  so they had to cut him open all the way to his breast bone to get it out. Simple 80 dollar operation turned into a 500 dollar operation, well the sad part is, when they were sewing him back up, they got his "man hood" sewed on a little crooked, so now instead of squating and letting it fly, he squats and pees all over his front leg, then looks up at me, with that look, "it all your fault you $%&&$$&*%%!!!!!, makes me feel terrible, so I will be glad when he starts to hike his leg, of course now, when he hikes, it will either go way up in the air, or straight down in the ground, hope he figures it out.lol. Now THAT is funny.  I think you owe your dog corrective surgery.

What even worse,  a friend of mine had a old dog named boomer, poor fellow in the end didnt even move, you had to open his mouth to put a dog treat in it. Well we named our pup boomer in honor of this old fellow, well, we were talking the other day and I was telling the same story, and he said, must be something about boomers, I was like what? Buddy said when they had their dog boomer fixed the same thing happened and they sewed his man hood in the up direction, everytime he took a whiz, peed all over his belly, his hair was even changed to a yellow color, they finally had to make him an out side dog because of the smell. Poor guy had to whiz on his self for 14 years.

Quoted: What even worse,  a friend of mine had a old dog named boomer, poor fellow in the end didnt even move, you had to open his mouth to put a dog treat in it. Well we named our pup boomer in honor of this old fellow, well, we were talking the other day and I was telling the same story, and he said, must be something about boomers, I was like what? Buddy said when they had their dog boomer fixed the same thing happened and they sewed his man hood in the up direction, everytime he took a whiz, peed all over his belly, his hair was even changed to a yellow color, they finally had to make him an out side dog because of the smell. Poor guy had to whiz on his self for 14 years.

Geez, man.  That's a rough life.  Makes me appreciate having a thumb and the ability to reach my wang to aim it when I pee.

Note to self: Don't name next dog Boomer.

Quoted: so they don't piss on their front feet.

Fixed.

It's a gun board...

For better AIM


GM

My dog raises his leg and shits. Always tries to get it on top of the bush..l