Dog Training – House Training Your Puppy

No training is more basic for pet owners than that very first essential lesson: Do it outside the house!

Teaching your pet to eliminate outside the house, not in it, generally starts between six and eight weeks of age. Puppies as young as four weeks have been started on the routine, but at that age very few have the muscular mastery to be successful.

Like any kind of puppy instruction program, trainer patience is as critical as the dog’s personality. ‘Sit’, ’stay’ along with other behaviors may often be learned in a number of days. ‘Potty’ training normally normally takes weeks – sometimes as short as two, often a month or more.

As with other learned behaviors, it helps to observe for signs of the desired behavior 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, because all dogs will naturally eliminate. The trick is to make them complete it when and where you choose!

View for signs imminent potty behavior, such as circling or squatting, then pick up the pup, say ‘outside’ and rush outdoors. The puppy may well circle some more, but will frequently squat instantly. As it begins, say ‘Go potty’ (or some other specific phrase) in a clear, firm (but not angry) voice. Wait until it is finished and praise the puppy lavishly.

You won’t always be able to catch the puppy about to begin, but don’t become mad or impatient when the puppy has an accident inside. This normally takes time for the dog to understand to tell you it is time to ‘go outside’. It also will take time for the muscles required to manage bladder and bowels to develop.

Young puppies need to potty every 2-3 hours, on average. In case you haven’t noticed pre-elimination behavior within that time, take the dog outside anyway. Issue the command ‘Go potty’ and wait. At first, generally, the puppy will have no clue what you need.

Yet again, even when outside, it helps to wait and watch for the wanted behavior then issue the command. That helps the puppy associate the command with the behavior. If the puppy has not gone right after a few minutes and a few ‘Go potty’ commands, take it back inside for an hour. Needless to say, in the event you detect the pre-elimination behavior in less time, go outdoors again right away.

Dogs have a astonishing capability to quickly learn what their ‘alpha’ (the leader of the pack) wishes. This really is nearly usually accomplished by associating a spoken command with actions, followed by praise. Punishment is generally counter-productive, and nowhere more so than in waste elimination instruction. Do not ever rub a dog’s nose in waste.

Paper and/or crate training is preferred by some. A pup could be trained to go on a newspaper, or on one of the chemically treated pads created for the purpose. Some little breeds that live all day in the house might not need to go outdoors at all.

The technique has a couple of downsides however. Unlike cats, dogs will rarely go inside a perfumed litter box. Newspapers (even with all the top layer removed following the dog goes) will eventually develop an unpleasant aroma inside the home.

Also, long before the odor becomes unpleasant to people, dogs can smell their own unique aroma. They don’t find it unattractive – quite the opposite. And that’s the problem.

Puppies which are paper trained will generally choose to potty inside. From time to time they’ll miss the paper by only an inch, making a mess to clean up.

Once the odor is in the carpeting, the puppy will often look for that spot out as its proper ‘place to go’. This makes training the puppy to potty outdoors even more challenging. Best to suffer a couple of accidents than to develop a hard-to-overcome habit.

Patience, praise and consistency are the keys to any puppy training. Elimination training may be the very first challenge for you and your puppy.

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