Peeing in house only when a person leaves the room

[CindyMillan]

We have a 4 month old female Double Doodle (Goldendoodle/Labradoodle) that has done great with potty training, pretty much always going to the backyard door and letting out a small bark to let us know.  However,  there is one specific time that she will pee in the house - whenever someone leaves the room.  Even though there may be 1, 2 or 3 of us still in the room with her, she will go to the place that the person left the room (door, doggie gate) and pee in front of it.  It is not geared to any specific person, just anyone that leaves the room.  I am not sure if this is a form of separation anxiety, since she is not being left alone, so I am perplexed.

[Adrienne]

Hello, and welcome to the forums.

While we tend to see full-blown separation anxiety/isolation distress behaviors in dogs at the onset of social maturity (around 12 to 36 months), puppies that are 4 to 6 months of age can also show signs of separation anxiety or its beginning. However, this is certainly an interesting behavior, considering that, in separation anxiety, we expect a dog to act anxious when their favorite person has left, but you mention your pup pees when anybody leaves (not a particular person), while in isolation distress, we expect a dog to act anxious when the dog is left alone, but you mention there are other people in the room with her.

  So there are some missing puzzle pieces here, although I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of there being some form of departure anxiety going on. If not, maybe at a minimum there's some activation of the sympathetic nervous system associated with seeing somebody they enjoy interacting with leave. 

To better understand the behavior, I have a few questions:

In general,  how do those who remain with the puppy interact with her just prior to somebody leaving the space?

And what do they do when the puppy pees?

How long after her last productive potty time (when she actually pees) do these potty accidents happen?

Does the puppy pee as the leaving person moves toward the door/doggie gate or only after the person is out of sight?

When the person leaves, does the puppy show any signs of anxiety such as walking back and forth, whining, acting upset?

And finally, how does this pup cope with when every body leaves (don't leave your pup alone for sake of answering this, if you have some info about how she reacted in the past upon being left alone in the room, please provide details on that). 

Thanks!