Potty training your puppy may seem like a frustrating experience – especially when you’re not seeing as much progress as you’d like. While each puppy is different, there are commonalities that exist which can help make the entire process of potty training a lot more manageable.
Puppies have an “eat-poop-repeat” routine during this young age, and that’s normal. Because of their underdeveloped bowel and lack of bladder control, they are not able to hold it in the way more mature dogs do. To develop the instinct to hold it in, puppies need to see a particular space (ex. your whole house) as a den or a place which they shouldn’t soil.
It usually takes at least six months for a puppy to be completely housetrained, so don’t stress if yours is not getting with the routine before that! For as long as you stay focused on the training, your puppy will soon be housetrained!
House Training Essentials You Need
When it comes to house training your puppy, there will be a few items you need to collect:
- Some product to remove odors and stains from urine and fecal matter, along with lots of paper towels
- A crate that will fit beside your bed and is large enough to fit your puppy when it is fully grown.
- Exercise pen that the puppy cannot jump over and out of. This should be in a central location in the house.
- Treats to serve as housetraining rewards – usually kept near the toilet area.
Frustrated with your Dog Peeing on the Carpet? CLICK HERE to find out how to Quickly get him FULLY Potty Trained!
Five Must-Dos Puppy House Training
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Provide access to toilet area – to avoid soiling inside the house
- The toilet area should be somewhere that is easily accessible to the puppy so it can relieve itself in the right place right away. The ideal place is a very specific outdoor location. If you don’t have access to outdoors or you live in a high-rise dwelling, you can delegate the bathroom or a pen for this.
- Confine your puppy to a small area to develop its den instinct – the desire to avoid soiling its home. You need to condition it about the places that must be kept clean (inside the house) and the place where it is ok to relieve itself (outside the house, or in a designated space inside).
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Establish a treats or rewards system – to reinforce positive behavior (peeing and pooping in the designated place)
- Reward your puppy immediately as soon as it displays even the slightest hint of proper behavior for relieving itself. It will learn much faster when it is rewarded, as it will be able to associate the treats with your intended outcomes.
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Exercise punishment avoidance – can result in behavioral consequences, as the puppy is in learning mode and mistakes are bound to happen
- If catch your puppy peeing elsewhere, try your best to stop it. Move as urgently as possible, but avoid scaring the puppy. Redirect it to the designated area and hopefully, the peeing will resume and finish there.
But if the puppy is pooing, let it finish because it’s much harder to stop poop compared to pee. Attempting to interrupt the pooping session will likely result in a huge mess that you’ll have to clean up!
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Strive to have a regular feeding schedule – to better predict when it needs to eliminate or relieve itself
- Depending on what they ate, drank, and did, puppies usually need to relieve themselves every half hour or 45 minutes except when they are asleep. Some puppies will also develop its own schedule based on personal preference.
If your puppy doesn’t sleep in a crate and has free reign of the house, follow it around to observe what it does so you can identify patterns in relation to it relieving itself. If you can’t do this, it is imperative that you put the puppy back in a crate or a pen to minimize potty accidents.
- Make the feeding schedule strictly predicable unless there is a medical reason not to. Never free-feed your puppy, because leaving food out at all times will encourage random elimination and reduce associations of you being the primary carer and provider.
- However, always make water available. Check the bowl regularly to know how much water your puppy is drinking.
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Make a habit out of toilet tracking – logging in a notebook when your puppy last relieved itself so you have notes on its toileting habits
- You can also take note of habits that you’ve observed prior to some poop action. Some of these may include sniffing r going around in circles.
House Training Taxi Service
This method is basically picking up the puppy, bringing it to the toilet area, setting it down, and delivering praise for going to where you want it to be. You should implement this every time your puppy wakes up, as soon as they finish meals or a drink of water, and soon after a period of active play.
You can also do this every time you think they need to go – it’s always better to do this more often than necessary rather than too late.
If the puppy whimpers in the crate or pen during crate training, take it out and bring it to the potty area, and then deliver a reward for going there before you put it back.
House Training Taxi Service should be done for a whole month until the puppy reaches three months. By this time, it should have better developed its bowel and bladder control. This great method will prevent so many mistakes during the rest of the potty training months.
Passive House Training
When you’re not at home, potty training will still continue by confining your puppy to a puppy-proofed area of the house. Here, it should have its bed, toys, food bowls and water bowls, papers or what is known as wee-wee pads. In the beginning your puppy will relieve itself everywhere, but when you get home clean everything up right away and lay out fresh papers.
In time, it will hopefully develop a habit of relieving itself on paper. Over time, you can gradually move the papers closer to the area where you want your puppy to relieve itself. Never allow your puppy freedom to move around and about until you are sure that it knows where it should go in order to relieve itself.
Frustrated with your Dog Peeing on the Carpet? CLICK HERE to find out how to Quickly get him FULLY Potty Trained!
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