Tips on Housebreaking your Puppy

No training is more basic for pet owners than that first important lesson: Do it outside!

Teaching your new puppy to eliminate outside the home, not in it, usually starts between six and eight weeks of age. Dogs as young as four weeks can be house broken, but at that age few have the muscular control to succeed.

With any dog training program, trainer patience is just as important as the dog’s temperament. ‘Sit’, ’stay’ and other behaviors can often be learned in a few days. ‘Potty’ training typically takes weeks – maybe as short as two, sometimes a month or more.

As with other learned behaviors, it helps to watch for signs of the desired elimination and enforce and direct them with a voice command followed by praise. In this case that technique works even more to the trainer’s advantage, since all dogs will naturally eliminate. The trick is to get your puppy to do it when and where you want!

Watch for circling or squatting, then pick up the pup, say ‘potty’ and dash outside. The puppy might circle some more, but will often squat immediately. When he starts, say ‘Go potty’ ( or some other unique phrase) in a clear, firm (but not angry) voice. Wait until it’s finished and praise lavishly.

You won’t always be able to catch the puppy about to eliminate, but don’t become angry or impatient when the dog eliminates indoors. It takes time for your puppy to learn to tell you it’s time to ‘go outside’. It also takes time for the muscles needed to control bladder and bowels to gain control.

Most young dogs need to eliminate every 2-3 hours, on average. If you haven’t spotted pre-elimination behavior within that time, take the dog outside anyway. Issue the command ‘Go potty’ and wait. At first, usually, the dog will have no clue what you want.

Especially, even when outside, it helps to wait and watch for the desired behavior then issue the command. That helps the dog associate the command with the behavior. Wait a few minutes and give the ‘Go Potty’ command a few times before taking the puppy in and then try agin in an hour. Of course, if you see the pre-elimination behavior in less time, go quickly outside again.

Dogs have a surprising capacity to quickly learn what their ‘alpha’ (the leader of the pack) wants. This is almost always accomplished by associating a verbal command with behavior, followed by praise. Punishment is usually counter-productive, and nowhere more so than in waste elimination training. Never rub a dog’s nose in waste.

Paper and/or crate training is preferred by some. A pup can be trained to go on a newspaper, or on one of the chemically treated potty pads designed for the purpose. Some small breeds that live all day in the apartment may not need to go outside at all.

The technique has a couple of downsides however. Unlike cats, dogs will rarely eliminate in a perfumed litter box. Newspapers (even with the top layer removed after the dog goes) will eventually create an unpleasant smell in the house.

Also, long before the odor becomes unattractive to humans, dogs can smell their own distinctive scent. Dogs don’t find the odor unattractive – quite the opposite. And that is where the problem lays.

Dogs that are paper trained will often prefer to potty indoors. Sometimes your puppy may miss the paper by only an inch, creating a mess to clean up.

Once the odor is in the carpet, the dog will continue to seek that spot out as its proper ‘place to go’. This makes training the dog to eliminate outside even more difficult. Best to suffer a few accidents than to create a hard-to-overcome habit.

Patience, praise and consistency are key factors to any dog training. Elimination training will be the first test for you and your dog.

Tags: Angry Voice, Bladder, Bowels, Clue, Crate Training, Dog, Dog Training, Dogs, Few Days, Few Minutes, house breaking, House Training, Housebreaking Puppy, Housebreaking Your Puppy, Learned Behaviors, Muscles, Muscular Control, New Puppy, Patience, pet owners, potty training, Pup, puppies, puppy training, Temperament, Voice Command