Our 12 month old golden retriever has suddenly started urinating on our back porch, which is tiled with tiles that seem to be porous and therefore retain the smell of the urine. We have a large backyard which she has never had trouble using in the past and she toilet trained fairly easily. This new behaviour seemed to start when there was heavy rain recently and she has kept doing it even when it is not raining. There are even times when she walks over a large patch of grass to climb up to the porch to urinate and yesterday she did three big puddles in the space of 5 minutes.
It is driving me mad, continually scrubbing the back porch and I never seem to catch her in the act so that I can discipline her at the proper moment. I have tried spraying bitter apple spray and sprinkling lavender oil on the tiles, but neither seems to have deterred her. A friend suggested Tabasco sauce, but I am afraid that this will stain the tiles. Someone else suggested citronella spray, but I am afraid that this will stop her coming up onto the back porch at all (which I don't want to do - I just want to stop her weeing on it!!).
Does anyone have any suggestions?
