Housetraining your puppy isn't hard, and
doesn’t have to take forever. Follow these simple
guidelines and you'll have a polite family member in no
time!
1. Buy and use a crate...you can get them
at many pet supply stores or "mart" type stores
for fairly reasonable prices. The idea behind crate use
is that a puppy doesn't want to stay in an area it has
soiled, so will learn to hold things until taken out.
Do remember that the puppy is a baby, with a baby's bladder.
Don't expect the puppy to "hold it' for more than
a couple of hours at a time, as that is physically impossible.
2. Make sure you set a schedule for feeding,
exercising and training your puppy and stick to it. If
the puppy can expect to be taken out at regular intervals,
it will learn to wait for outside time to eliminate.
3. When out of the crate, never let your
puppy out of your sight. Use baby gates or doors or a
leash connected to you to keep the puppy in view at all
times. If it goes off and eliminates without a timely
correction, this will cause confusion in the puppy's mind
and make housetraining more difficult. The idea is to
never let the puppy make an uncorrected mistake, but for
the correction to make any sense in the puppy's mind,
it must occur at the time of the mistake. Even a minute
or two later is far too late for you to show the puppy
the proper place for elimination. Corrections after the
fact are a waste of time, and may do more harm than good.
4. Be consistent and kind when correcting
your puppy. Learn to see the warning that elimination
is about to occur. "Nose down, tail up" is the
universal puppy signal you need to react to immediately.
When you see this behavior, ask the puppy "do you
want to go outside?" Pick the puppy up, as this gives
less chance for a mistake to happen on the way to the
door. Using the same door to the yard every time also
simplifies the process in the puppy's mind, as it will
learn to associate that door with elimination, so pick
and use the door you'll want your dog to use and take
the puppy through it every time. Repeat at the door "do
you want to go outside' and then take the puppy out, wait
for the inevitable to happen, and then praise the puppy
to the skies. Very Good Puppy!! The praise is the first
key to success, as most puppies want to do the right thing,
and love to be told how wonderful they are. Praising the
puppy for outside elimination will help it to understand
the difference between how you react to inside vs. outside
potty use.
5. If elimination starts before you get
to the puppy, don1 be mean-sounding. Use an alarmed voice.
Oh, What Happened?? Let's Get This Fixed Right Now! Then
pick the puppy up, mindful of the fact that your hands
will wash, and follow the procedure outlined in step 4.
6. THIS IS THE STEP THAT HOUSETRAINS YOUR
DOG FOLLOW IT EXACTLY! It is vital that you not only clean,
but remove the scent from every place in the house that
your puppy eliminates. Dogs smell where they've been before,
and that triggers a response in their brain that tells
them it's ok to go there again. No matter what you do,
if your dog can smell a potty spot, it will continue to
use that potty spot. That's how their brain is wired.
Don't fight it, use it. You can buy special odor eliminators
at pet supply stores, and they work fine, but so does
plain old white vinegar. Blot up as much moisture, or
pick up all the solid stuff as you can, then saturate
the area with white vinegar. If the potty spot was on
a carpet, make sure the vinegar soaks at least as far
into the padding as the urine did. Your house will smell
like a pickle for a few days, but this really works and
isn't damaging to flooring. If you're concerned about
a particularly valuable carpet, you can test a small spot
first.
7. Puppies need to eliminate after waking
from a nap, after eating or drinking and after playing
hard. If you offer your puppy a chance to go outside right
after each of these events, you’ll be well on your
way to a house-trained puppy. Good luck!
