House Training

Child-proofing || Crate Training || Toys || Separation Anxiety || Housetraining || Bite Inhibition

Puppies have a tendency to keep their sleeping/den area clean as early as 5 weeks of age. Most puppies are still with their dam at the breeder’s home at that age. Therefore the responsibility of housebreaking should begin with the breeder by making an appropriate area for elimination available to the puppies. A puppy raised in this fashion will be housebroken quickly in its new home. Since the majority of puppies are not acquired from responsible breeders however, house-breaking usually does not begin until the puppy is brought into its new home.

As in all training -- do not use punishment when housetraining your puppy. What the puppy learns from punishment is to be afraid of you.

Your puppy will learn much faster if you catch it doing the right thing and rewarding it for that. Every time you praise the puppy for doing it right, you are one step closer to your final goal. If you get a chance to praise your puppy 8 times a day for going in his designated area and it has none or only one accident in the house, your puppy will be trained quickly. If you don’t monitor it closely enough and it has an accident half of the time and only gets praised for going in the designated area the other half of the time reliable housebreaking may not occur or will only occur at a slow pace.

Use a crate to confine your puppy when you cannot supervise it. Refer to crate training. If your puppy routinely eliminates in the crate I recommend the use of an exercise pen with a designated toilet area to break the puppy out of this habit. The toilet area in that case should be either a piece of sod or a shallow container filled with mulch. These kinds of materials most closely resemble the areas you would want your puppy to eliminate on when you take it outside. I do not recommend newspapers, carpet or other fabrics because this will get your puppy accustomed to using indoor surfaces for elimination. When you use a playpen instead of a crate you should still use the same schedule for housebreaking as if you would use a crate.

Start by developing a schedule for feeding, exercise, sleeping and elimination that is reasonable so you can stick to it. Puppies should be fed 3 times a day -- what goes in on time comes out on time. Use the instructions on the food label on how much to feed as a guideline only. They tend to be on the generous side. If your puppy’s stools are loose, you are probably feeding too much. Reduce the quantity of food by 10 % until his stools become well-formed. An overfed puppy will not be able to control his bowel movements.

Puppies under 4 months of age have limited bladder and sphincter control. Until that age they are rarely able to hold it for more than 3 - 4 hours.

Puppies usually need to eliminate immediately after they wake up, after they eat and during and after playtime/excitement.

Example for a housebreaking schedule:

Take puppy out first thing in the morning, tell it to "go outside" as you leave the house. Give the puppy 5 to 10 minutes to do its business, when it gets ready to go, tell it to "go potty" (or other command you would like to use), if it goes, praise it calmly while it goes and then click (or say "yes") and treat and provide some playtime (1 minute) when it is finished. Then bring it back into the house. Keep the puppy with you, as you begin your daily routine. If it did not eliminate on the trip outside put it back into its confinement area for another 15 minutes and then try again. After the puppy has finished eating its meals, take it outside again, repeat the above steps until it does its business. Until your puppy is completely house-broken you must go outside with your puppy every time so you can praise it every time when it does the right thing. Luckily our mild weather here in the valley makes this a little bit easier.

Exercise and vigorous play activities should not be scheduled immediately before or after meals to avoid indigestion and bloat.

Take your puppy out one more time before you go to bed and then set your alarm clock for three hours after you go to bed to take the puppy out. Repeat one more time during the night. If all goes well for one week of doing this start setting your alarm clock halfway through the night (only one trip outside). If all goes well for a week set the alarm clock for 6 hours and after a week of that see if your puppy can make it through the night.

Initially you should take your puppy outside at least every hour if it is awake. If it does not have any accidents for at least a week you can gradually increase that time. At 6 months a puppy should be able to hold it for up to 8 hours.

Important: Accidents will only happen if the puppy is unsupervised. So please, keep an eye on your doggie at all times and when you can’t, even if it is only for a minute, confine it.

If you catch your puppy just when it begins to squat on your carpet, interrupt with a stern "hey" or "uh, uh", then take the youngster outside quickly and praise it when it finishes the job there.

Never punish after the fact!

If an accident did happen, put the puppy away (in his crate or another room) then clean up the mess. I recommend Nature’s Miracle; it cleans well, has a pleasant smell, and its enzymes will destroy the odor that would bring the puppy back to the same spot.

Tip: Don’t forget to keep your humor! Puppyhood is too short -- enjoy it, take lots of pictures or keep it all on film - including the accidents!

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