You might have seen it, little dogs performing highly acrobatic walking handstands while urinating at the same time. It’s remarkable that these dogs can walk on their forelegs for quite a considerable distance in any case but to urinate at the same time adds another degree of difficulty! I think I would give them 9/10 if they were in a gymnastic competition.
The big question is why they do it and the way I see it there can only be two reasons, (1) they want to avoid getting urine over their hind legs and paws and (2) they want to increase the height at which they urinate against objects in order to maximise the effect. The latter comes into play because it seems to me that it is only small dogs that do this. And the second reasons is almost certainly the genuine reason. The first reason doesn’t really hold water (urine!) as it makes it harder to avoid peeing over themselves!
Here are two examples but there are many more. These are embedded videos. They might stop working one day and I can’t stop it happening..
@russetpotatopom I got to keep on moving🤪 #dog #pom #pomeranian #funny #foryou #foryoupage #handstand #animals #cute #comedy #dogtok #handstandchallenge #peeing #dogs ♬ Break My Stride – Chateau Pop
Some dogs, like domestic cats, spray urine to mark territory. It is a calling card to say they have been there. And they do this by spraying horizontally on vertical objects normally. And if a dog is a large dog the urine marking is quite high off the ground. This, I presume, makes it more noticeable to other dogs. The signal that they are delivered has more effect which is exactly what they want.
For little dogs it is far harder to enjoy these benefits. Perhaps small dogs have noticed big dogs doing it and therefore they try and mimic big dog performance and in doing so are behaving irrationally by jetting their urine while in a handstand position. When they do this the urine and is simply jetted onto the ground and therefore it is not high off the ground but on it!
It must be an instinctive response to a desire to scent mark with urine effectively. It may be driven by stress. That is my gut feeling actually. Small dogs may feel threatened by bigger dogs and they feel driven to do this to compete with larger animals. We see this in the second video. It seems that she/he has copied his friends.
Remarkably, it seems to be quite common. It certainly isn’t uncommon.
