Potty Training Your Dog

A puppy is a bundle of joy. His cute little antics can make you roll with laughter and delight. Carrying him in your arms will give you immense happiness and when he curls up in your lap, the delight will be past everything else you ever experienced! However, adopting a puppy is more than just plain joy. It is a responsibility. You should ensure that you train him right if you want to bond right and help him grow right. One of the most important aspects of training is dog puppy training.

Don’t expect your puppy to learn where to go potty on his own. You will have to teach him that and you will have to ensure that you teach him while he is still a puppy. Generally, it is easier to train puppies than it is to train adult dogs. The same goes with humans, doesn’t it? It is easier to learn new things than to fend off an existing habit or to alter it. Thus, you should make sure your puppy goes potty in the place allotted for it right from the time you bring him home. He may learn which his new house is and that he has to stay within those boundaries but he won’t learn where in his house or outside the house to go potty. That is something you will have to teach. Otherwise, he will be more than happy to poop around the place, wherever he wants to.

The most important aspect of dog potty training is patience. You should not give up in a day or a week. Your puppy will take his time to learn and you should accept that. You didn’t learn the alphabet in a day, did you? It took time for you. The same goes with puppies. It will take time for them to learn what to do and what not to do. Here are tips that will help you out and ensure that the potty training goes smoothly.

There are four main elements of dog potty training. They are: confinement, training, timing, and praise.

1.   Confinement:

Use a Dog Crate to train your dog. Keep him in the confines of the crate when you are training him. However, there is no need of blankets or newspapers in the crate unless you want them annihilated. Make sure the crate is not large. The space should be enough for your puppy to turn and to lie down comfortable. You may wonder why this is necessary. If the space is large, he will sleep happily in it and make it his home on one side and then poop or go potty on the other side. You don’t want that now, do you? If the space is smaller and only large enough for him to sleep and relax, he will not go potty there because it will become his confined home.

2.   Training:

Always use a leash during dog potty training. With a leash you will always have close to you and he will concentrate on his task better. If you try doing it without a leash, he will happily get distracted and run around chasing insects and birds or playing around. Additionally, by using a leash you will be able to take him in the right place and make sure he eliminates only there and no place else.

Teach him commands alongside such as Pee, Go Potty, Outside, and so on. Choose commands that come easily to you so that you don’t have a problem repeating them. You should place more importance to the word Outside so that he knows he should go potty outside the house and not inside.

If he doesn’t go potty for several minutes, bring him back home. Take him out after twenty minutes and try again.

3.   Praise:

You HAVE TO praise your dog when he does something right. Have to! Have to! HAVE TO! Dogs love impressing their owners and you should make sure you show them the enthusiasm they want. If he goes potty in the place where he is supposed to, praise him and pat him lovingly so that he realizes he did a good thing. Do that a few times and he will start going potty in the right place just so that you pat him and adore him. Dogs love praise and they deserve it when they do something right. Make sure you shower your bundle of joy with praise, hence.

4.   Timing

You have to pay special attention to timing when it comes to dog potty training. If you miss the timing, he will poop in all the wrong places. You should make sure you take him out to poop after every activity. For example, you should take him out once he eats; you should take him out when he wakes up; you should take him out when he goes for a walk; and so on.

You should also look for signs such as running around suddenly, circling, sniffing a spot, and stopping suddenly while playing. These are all signs that he wants to go potty. When you see signs like these, you should take him to the spot he should go potty immediately.

Initially you should train him every hour of the day. You might even need to take him out a few times in the night. You can, however, eliminate this need by taking him out after his dinner and before he hits the sack. When he goes potty before sleeping, it is likely that he will sleep through the night without the urge to defecate.

Mistakes:

Dogs are not perfect. No being is, actually. There might be a few mistakes. If you catch him going potty inside, you should make a loud noise and show your displeasure at his act. Then you should say something like ‘Bad Dog!’ so that he knows that he did something wrong that caused you to get mad at him. Again, it is all about timing. Keep a watch on him in the initial months so that he doesn’t go potty inside unnoticed. Whenever you see him going potty, you can raise an alarm to grab his attention and to let him know it is wrong. He will learn soon enough.

All in all, be patient and help your dog learn. It is only a matter of time before he learns. Consistency will do the trick for you.