Potty Training For Your Dog

The first thing you’re gonna teach your puppy when it comes into your home is how to toilet appropriately. And I’m going to take you step-by-step through the house training process. The best way to start house training your puppy is to create, in your home, a safe zone, where your puppy can be left when it’s unsupervised. Please don’t allow the puppy to free roam around the house. Otherwise, that will encourage your puppy to toilet anywhere in your home. Also Read- How to keep a dog from pooping in your yard

You can create a safe zone either by using a small room in your home, preferably with a tiled floor. Or if you don’t have a small room, use a pen where your puppy can be contained. It’s really important that you puppy-proof any safe zone where your puppy is going to be unsupervised, so it can’t chew on anything that’s gonna harm it or be inappropriate. You can do that by getting down on your puppy’s level and looking around the area, just to make sure that your puppy’s gonna be completely safe when it’s left in this place unsupervised. 

If you’re gonna choose to paper train your puppy, which a lot of people do because they don’t want their puppies to go outside without being fully vaccinated, you can start off the process by lining the entire safe zone with pads. After a couple days, take away a few of the pads, so that your puppy gets used to going to one area to toilet. As your puppy gets used to going to one particular area, you can take away more pads until there’s maybe one or two pads left, on which your puppy can toilet. Also Read- What is the least effective method to retrieve a dog that has got off leash?

When your puppy has been really good at toileting on the pads, you can then begin to take your puppy outside. If you have a backyard that’s a safe area to take your puppy, you can use paper training and taking your puppy outside at the same time. If you live in an urban environment, and you want to wait to take your puppy outside until its had all its vaccinations, then you can make that transition by taking a piece of soiled pad and taking it out onto the street, putting it down in a safe area for your dog to toilet, so that your dog then begins to make the association. 

Okay, the pad is out here on the street, I can still toilet out here, and I’m going to be safe while doing so. When your dog has made that transition by toileting on the pad outside in the street,then you can remove the pad. But it’s also okay if you don’t want to paper train at all and you just want to concentrate on teaching your puppy to go outside. Either way, you’re going to be teaching your puppy where to toilet appropriately. 

It’s always really good to have a word that you can use that encourages your puppy to toilet. I use that word to begin with as the puppy is in the act of toileting, so the puppy then begins to make the association between the word –such as, ‘go potty’– and the action of toileting. Then, you can begin to use it at other times when you want to encourage your puppy to toilet. You say the words, ‘go toilet’, ‘go potty’, whatever you want. Once you’ve built up that actual word, so that your puppy associates the word with the act of toileting, you can use it before the dog toilets to encourage the dog to toilet.