House breaking your new puppy is a part of basic puppy training
No training is more basic for pet owners than that first important lesson: Do it outside!
Teaching your puppy to potty 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.
Like any dog training program, trainer patience is as important as the dog’s temperament. ‘Sit’, ‘stay’ and other behaviors can often be learned in a few days. ‘Potty’ training usually takes weeks – sometimes as short as two, often a month or more.
As with other learned behaviors, it helps to watch for signs of the desired actions 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 challenge is to get them to do it when and where you want!
Observe for circling or squatting, then scoop up the pup, say ‘outside’ and dash outside. The puppy may circle some more, but will often squat immediately. As it begins, say ‘Go potty’ (or some other unique phrase) in a clear, firm (but not angry) voice. Wait until the puppy is finished and praise lavishly.
You won’t always be able to see the puppy about to start, but don’t become angry or impatient when the dog has an accident indoors. It takes repetition for the dog to learn to tell you it’s time to ‘go outside’. It also takes time for the muscles needed to control the bladder and bowels to develop.
Young dogs need to go 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.
Again, even when outside, it helps to wait and notice for the desired behavior then issue the Potty command. That helps the dog associate the command with the behavior. If the puppy still hasn’t gone after a few minutes and a few ‘Go potty’ commands, take him back inside and try again in an hour. Of course, if you see the pre-elimination behavior sooner, go outside again immediately.
Dogs have a unique ability 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 your pup’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 doggie pads designed for the purpose. Some small breeds that live all day in the home may not need to go outside at all.
The technique has a couple of downsides however. Unlike cats, dogs will seldom go in a scented litter box. Newspapers will often leave an unpleasant smell in the house.
Also, long before the odor becomes unattractive to humans, dogs can smell their own distinctive odor. Dogs don’t find the smell unattractive – quite the opposite. So that spot continues to be the problem.
Dogs that are paper trained sometimes will prefer to potty indoors. Sometimes they’ll miss the paper by just an inch, resulting in a smelly mess to clean up.
Once the scent 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.
Providing patience, praise and consistency are key factors to any dog training. Elimination training is the first test to be tackled for you and your dog.
Get more tips and advice on housetraining or dog training at Luvurdog.com/dogtraining
Posted under House Training Puppies
This post was written by Noel DCosta on April 21, 2009
