Direct answer
If your puppy is dribbling urine while walking, leaking while sitting or resting, or leaving wet spots without clearly assuming a normal urination posture, don’t assume it’s a potty-training failure. Those patterns can point to urinary incontinence or another medical issue and are worth a veterinary check.
Ordinary housetraining accidents usually involve a puppy assuming a normal urination posture and actively emptying its bladder in the wrong place. Incontinence is different: urine leaks involuntarily, sometimes while the dog is walking, lying down, or sleeping. Merck and VCA both describe walking dribbling and wet spots where a dog has been resting as characteristic signs of urinary incontinence.
This can also appear in young puppies with a congenital defect called an ectopic ureter, where a ureter opens somewhere outside the bladder instead of into it. Typical signs include continuous or intermittent leakage, difficulty potty training, leakage while lying down or sleeping, dribbling, and recurrent urinary tract infections. Female dogs are about 20 times more likely to be diagnosed with ectopic ureters than males, and some breeds — including Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers, and Skye Terriers — are more commonly affected.
Other urinary problems, including infection, bladder inflammation, or problems with urine storage, can also cause abnormal leaking or frequent urination. Sorting out which one it is isn’t something to guess at home; it takes a veterinary exam. Adding more crate time or a stricter reward schedule won’t fix an underlying medical problem, so it is worth ruling that out before treating this as a training gap.
One sign needs prompt attention rather than a routine appointment: if your puppy keeps posturing to urinate but produces little or nothing, or seems to be straining and in pain, that can signal a urinary blockage, which is a medical emergency.
Dribbling while walking is a urinary sign worth investigating, not something to keep treating as a training failure.