how do i potty train my puppy?

Answer 1

I hope this excellent training article helps!

Housetraining Tips by Scottee Meade

Housetraining is a universal problem with a simple solution.

These tips will help you train your puppy or older dog to eliminate outdoors.

Good Health Is Essential
Make sure your puppy or dog is healthy before undertaking housetraining. Intestinal parasites are the most common cause of inappropriate defecation.

Bladder infections are a frequent cause of inappropriate urination. If you suspect a bladder problem, have a urine sample checked as well. Symptoms of bladder infection include frequent urination of small amounts, unproductive straining, or licking of private parts.

Feed your puppy a good quality puppy food. Avoid over feeding or making sudden changes in his diet; both can cause diarrhea. Another common problem arises when a dog has been given steroids to treat a bee sting or allergic reaction. Steroids usually increase the dog’s water intake and urine output.

Scheduling
Feed your puppy on a fairly regular schedule, two or three times a day. Allow 30 minutes for each meal, and remove the leftovers after that time. Maintaining a feeding schedule helps predict output.

Schedule your puppy’s trips outdoors. The average puppy needs frequent opportunities to eliminate. Start first thing in the morning with a trip outside as soon as your puppy awakens. Puppies feel the call of nature about every hour when they are awake and playing. They need to go out soon after eating, and after drinking water. By the age of 10 or 12 weeks, the average healthy puppy can sleep through the night. If your puppy has an accident, examine the schedule and make adjustments to prevent future accidents.

Confinement
One of the most valuable tools in housetraining is the dog crate. Intended to be used like a baby’s playpen or crib, the crate keeps the puppy safely confined when no one is available to supervise her. Crating prevents accidents for the normal puppy, because her instinct to keep her nest clean is very strong. Crating also prevents her from destroying your treasured possessions while she is teething, or injuring herself by chewing on or ingesting something harmful.

Your puppy should be crated at night while you are asleep, and any other time you cannot supervise his activities. This includes times when you are on the phone or in the shower, or doing anything that prevents you from paying full attention to your puppy. He should have an opportunity to go outside every time you let him out of his crate.

Training
Every time you take your puppy outside, give her plenty of cues. As you walk out the door with her, say “Let’s go outside.” Take her to her spot, and repeat your cue phrase as she is about to eliminate. (Be sure to use a phrase that does not come up in every day conversation. Avoid cues such as “hurry up” or “be a good dog” in favor of something more specific, such as “go.”) When she goes, praise her enthusiastically and reward her with a very small food treat, right there on the spot.

After several repetitions of this routine, your puppy will learn to eliminate on cue (very useful in bad weather or strange places) and learn that eliminating outside is more fruitful than eliminating inside. After a week of this, continue to praise the puppy every time she goes outside, but reward with food on a more random basis. In a couple of weeks, you won’t need the food reward at all.

Accidents
If you find an accident, clean it up, and consider adjusting your puppy’s schedule to prevent another accident. Punishing your puppy only teaches him to be wary of you. If you catch him in the act and punish or correct him, he will learn to eliminate when you aren’t looking, which will defeat your training program. If you should see your puppy circling as if he has to go, gently remind him to “go outside” and help him get to his spot where he can earn praise and a reward.
Accidents happen most frequently in the morning or evening when the puppy is out playing with the family. It is easy to become so involved in an activity that you forget that the puppy hasn’t been outside in an hour. If this is the case, find a way to remind yourself, such as setting a kitchen timer or alarm clock.

Patience
Unrealistic expectations are a frequent cause of problems in housetraining. On average, the bladder/brain connection is not fully formed until the puppy is about 8 months old. If a young puppy does go to the door and “ask to go out,” his need is immediate, he must go out right away. Some dogs never learn to ask to go out, while others learn quickly to go to the door and sit or bark or ring a bell. Some dogs learn to use a dog door easily and go out whenever they feel the urge. The best way to ensure success is to stick to a schedule long enough for the puppy’s body to adapt to it and get in the habit of eliminating at particular times.

Neuter or Spay
If you are not planning to enter your dog in conformation competition, neutering or spaying helps ensure successful housetraining. Neutered males still lift their legs, but are less inclined to mark their territory (including the priceless antique chair legs and the floor-length drapes). They are also less prone to certain cancers and prostate problems that can lead to accidents in older dogs. Unspayed females ovulate twice a year, on average. For several weeks before and during the heat cycle they are more prone to mark territory. They are also more vulnerable to bladder problems that can lead to accidents.

Paper Training Is Not Housetraining

Teaching your puppy to eliminate indoors on newspaper does not lead to success in housetraining. Dogs are place oriented, and once taught to go in a particular place on a particular surface will continue to do so. Careless newspaper readers are liable to reach for a section they left on the floor only to find it has been used by the family dog.
If you must confine your puppy for more than six or eight hours at a time, or if you live in a high-rise apartment with a small dog, consider using a “litter box” for your dog. A plastic under-the-bed storage container, lid removed, filled with bark mulch will serve this purpose very well. The mulch absorbs urine odors, and smells and feels like “outside.” You can confine your puppy in a small room, such as a bathroom, with a baby gate, giving him enough room for a comfy bed, his water dish, and his mulch box.
This approach works well for young puppies and very elderly dogs with health problems, and is less likely to interfere with your efforts to train your dog to eliminate outside.

Best of luck!

Answer 2

Please get all the info you can. Dont take this lightly. Your dog has needs just as people do and your own potty training wasnt taken lightly.

Get books at the library, google, and please before you actually consider cage training, have a read of this page:
http://warreneckstein.com/pettips_caging.html

a puppy can be potty trained in less than 2 weeks depending on whether he is old enough. Good potty training relies on the people of the house keeping the dog on a schedule of food and water, watching closely---like a toddler and taking him out the moment he shows signs of wanting to go potty.

Then give enormous, over-the-top loving praise and hugs and affection for when he does go outside. Dogs are very intelligent and so long as you give clear communication about when he has done something right, he will want to do it again just to make you happy and ensure his bonding with your pack.

he is still just a little puppy and instinct drives him to try to please you because he needs a pack to survive. Remember if you just got the puppy he has just also lost his mom and needs the reassurance of spending lots and lots of quality time with is new pack.

It is easier to potty train a puppy than to try to get him used to caging/crating. being locked away from his pack is about the most stressful and damging thing possible for any dog, let alone a puppy.

Crates are okay for transporting or to keep him safe in certain instances but do absolutely nothing for training purposes and do more harm than good.

Answer 3

Start crate training the puppy ASAP. Dogs (as most animals) will not or will learn quickly to not soil the area they sleep or reside in. Crate training is best. When you cannot give full attention to the puppy (away or a night) place the puppy in the crate. Do not give in to the whining or yelping and barking. It will learn this is his/her place soon enough. When removing the puppy from the crate, immediately take the puppy outside. Praise the puppy when he/she does their business. This will be fast and you will be amazed at the results. When not in crate, take the puppy outside every 2 hrs and leave it there until it does its business. Do not let it back in until it goes. Take the puppy out within 30 minutes of eating and do the same thing.

Answer 4

Puppies need to go to the bathroom a lot. Make sure you let him outside at least 3 times an hour. Carry the puppy outdoors when he becomes restless in the middle of the night, and wait until he's finished relieving himself. If you don't want to wake up every hour to let him out, tuck your puppy into a cozy cennal in your bedroom at night. Dogs are den animals and don't like to soil the area where they sleep. It should be small enough so he can't pee in the corner and big enough for him to turn around.
Watch your puppy's behavior while relieving himself outdoors so you can detect the warning signs and intercept him when indoors.
Avoid giving your dog the message that relieving himself is wrong. Don't rub his nose in the mess, and don't hit him with a newspaper.
Just praise him when he does good. Remember, he is a puppy, and there will be accidents.

Answer 5

What is most important when training a dog is positive reinforcement. Of course everyone rubs their noses in the "mess" and yells at the dog. But going outside with your puppy and giving him/her a treat every time the go in the right place along with an enthusiastic "Good Potty!!!!" does the trick. We taught our dog in about 4 weeks. It gets frustrating but scaring a dog doesn't help anything! Just stick to it!!

Answer 6

You need to be vigilant in the first couple of weeks after you get your puppy.

When the puppy wants to do its business it will start sniffing the floor. At this point you need to take it to the area where it is supposed to do its business and let it sniff around until it does. Then praise and cuddle it. In my experience, food treats are best avoided. A "Good boy" or "Good girl" in an approving tone works better.

After a while it will whine and/or scratch the door when it wants to go do its business. Some dogs need to walk quite a bit before they can "go" so be patient.

Answer 7

we found that as soon as they get up you have to also. pick them up take them outside and after they look at you with that look of I'm cold daddy i want to go inside and pee .get their attention by using a recognisable sound usually wee ! wees! after chasing them back try and try again until they do it ,but sometimes you have to go further out of your warm zone and keep trying ,we just had 5 and all of them were different ,the mum was worse she liked her warmth and we caught her a couple of times ,PS this system is not 100% full proof they do forget keep reinforcing it ....cold feet ,,,cu

Answer 8

You *CAN'T*!!!!
Dogs can't use a "potty"!!!!They'd TIP IT!!!!

MILLIONS of people over TENS of THOUSANDS of years have managed to HOUSEBREAK dogs,though.
So easy a caveman can do it!

CONFINE(CRATE!) it when not under DIRECT SUPERVISION!!!