Nervous peeing

I got a dog a few weeks ago from the pound. He is a foxy cross and a happy little fellow. Unfortunately he has had no training at all and has many bad habits. We have made a lot of progress with training but he is still being growled at for the things he isn't allowed to do (chewing hands, toileting inside, chewing, wandering). I am trying to balance it with plenty of praise when he does the right thing and cuddles.

I think he will be a good dog and has come a long way in a short time. However, he has obviously been beaten in his previous home and when I growl he will often sink to the ground and wee a bit. Sometimes he will do it even when I approach to let him off his chain. It makes me feel terrible that I am scarring him that much that he wets himself :(

He is about a year old. Is this something that will right itself in time with fair treatment or will he always be prone to doing it? I would like to be able to pick him up without getting my hand ****ed on.

We've got a pit cross (3 year old neutered male) that we got from the RSPCA when he was 3mths old.

It's only in the past couple of mths that he's stopped peeing everywhere - poor boy pees when people shout, pees when he's over excited etc!!

The one thing that really helped was not making eye contact with him when we let him out of his crate (he's crated overnight and when we go out) and not making a fuss of him until he's outside and he's been to the loo.

Everything is done very calmly, and quite detached (it's so hard pretending not to have missed him when he's so happy to see you) until he's been to the loo then it's full on hugs and cuddles and craziness!

We think a lot of the problems with Stupid are that he was neutered so young and he missed out on a lot of socialization and training as a puppy. The litter was seized at 3 weeks old and while the kennels did the best they could it wasn't the same as a good home breeder.