my pup is pissing

[Vizsla-newbie]

My puppy who's a 4 month old male Vizsla is showing great signs of his intelligence and his natural hunting instinct. We were able to train him to go outside to go to the bathroom real quick, it took about a couple of weeks. But at the end of the day he's still a puppy and he makes mistakes. But recently in the last week he's gone awry it seems. When he grabs things to chew on, such as papers, magazines, socks and what not we(my wife and I) will go to take said items away from him and once we try and take it away from him he starts pissing. Not a lot but he still does. I'm assuming that he's just nervous or excited and can't control it. Sometimes he'll do it when somebody comes in the house. I think that too is due to his excitement. Overall he is a wonderful smart puppy. We've never punished him physically so I ruled that out as a cause. Or maybe I'm expecting too much of such a young dog just because he seemed to catch on real quick about not going potty in the house and he seems to be regressing and not progressing.

Is this something that is normal for a 4 month old. Should I be concerned or am I just wasting energy worrying about this. I'm not really sure. I'm almost 29 years old and the last time I dealt with the raising of a puppy I was about 6 years old so I don't really have any prior experience to look back at.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions.

[mainequail]

All good puppy books will have a section on "fear wetting", it has nothing to do with housetraining. Its a submissive thing which most dogs outgrow if handled properly. Punishment would be the wrong thing to do. Both my Vizslas were over it by 9 - 10 months old.

If you really want to fully understand your puppy from HIS point of view, find The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of New Skete. It is the best (IMO) puppy book I have seen.

[Vizsla-newbie]

Thanks for the info. We haven't punished him for it. I've read that it's their way of showing they're being submissive. I was mostly worried that it was something he may not grow out of. Maybe he was too timid or too submissive and not sure fo himself enough and that was worrying me. I feel better knowing that others here and those that I've talked to say that it's natural and that they grow out of it. We try very hard to try help him feel very confident about himself. The thing I guess I have to remember is that he's only 4 months old and has only been with us a little less than 2 of those months. They have been a wonderful 2 months though, this little guy is smart as hell and is has already taught me a allkinds of things just watching him make his way through his new world. It's great.

By the way, how old are your Vizsla's now. From what I've researched and from what my wife has said (she had 3 Vizsla's growing up) they have a tendency to mature much slower than some breeds but once they do they are unbelievablly talanted, smart, and great natural hunters. Depending on whether or not they'd be old enough to start to exhibit thier instincts, when did they start to show that they were ready to be formally trained. Given that it's going to be different from one dog to the next

[mainequail]

My current Vizsla is 6 years old, her brother trains with her freqently and they hunt really well together. My previous Vizsla has been gone for 8 years. My cousin also has a 2 year old that is related to my dog.

We start basic obedience training at 8 weeks old. Hunting training around 9 months. I don't even try the starter pistol until 9-10 months old.

I have this odd opinion that if you get the obedience training down solid, they already know how to hunt, retrieve and point. You just need the obidence training to modify the hunting instincts to suit your needs.