So... why do dogs pee on things?

I guess this goes as a question and a little story that made me wonder why.

My backyard used to have a really big tree, until our neighbors asked us to cut it down, which we did. My dad decided to keep the trunk, and use it as a table in our garage (he makes things with wood, so he used it for nailing things and other tasks). Well, we finished building an extension to our house and my dad now uses the backyard for making his woodworks. So he brought the trunk to the backyard so he had something else to put things on.

So then my dog Rocket walks to the backyard and sees the trunk. He sniffs it, and then, while my dad is working on something on that table, he pees on it! My dad got a little bit angry (although I'm sure he thought it was more cute than anything) and Rocket just walked on to the backyard to do whatever he was going to do.

So are dogs really "marking their territory" when they do this?

It's a way of communicating, they leave a scent marker for other dogs to say "I was here"...they also do use scent markers ot establish their territory...it's interesting to find that the higher the dog can make it's urine mark the longer the scent lasts...which is really interesting when you see a female dog squatting and aiming high on a tree..haha they try to leave the mark at nose levels of other dogs. I find with my dogs they wait for their walks to urinate, they love to mark every thing they see, trees, bushes, etc. Dogs also use their feces to mark, the anal gland secretion is a scent they leave with their feces.

Rocket probably saw the tree trunk with no leaves and figured it needed some water. Smart doggie