12/24/2024
LET’S TALK PUPPIES
Young Puppies WILL have potty accidents.
They will need you to help potty train them. It doesn’t just happen. They won’t just figure it out.
Potty training takes time and patience. It’s VERY inconvenient, as your time is NOT your time. You MUST pay attention to your puppy to know when to take them outside before they have an accident.
A good rule of thumb is to let them out EVERY TIME after they eat food or drink water, whenever they wake up, have a play session, get excited/nervous, get the zoomies, start pacing and/or sniffing around the house, get let out of the crate, etc. It’s important to watch and learn your puppy, so you can help it be successful.
You will also lose sleep, as young puppies MUST be let outside a COUPLE times EVERY night.
Crate training usually helps with potty training, as most puppies do not like to potty where they sleep.
I recommend ALWAYS going outside with your puppy on a leash while you’re potty training. (Yes, it’s a pain in the butt this time of year especially, but it will pay off in the long run.). By going outside with your puppy you ALWAYS know for sure they are pottying before you bring them back in the house. A puppy just let outside will often get distracted outside and “forget” to go potty, then they come in the house and have an accident.
Going outside with them on a leash you can also start rewarding them for going potty outside. However, IF you plan to reward your dog for going potty WAIT for it to FINISH going and then IMMEDIATELY say whatever you’re going to name it and Reward your puppy. Example: Fido goes p*e outside, when done, you immediately say “good piddles” and reward. This will help to teach your puppy (when it’s older) how to potty on command.
Other things to consider about housebreaking are: Size & breed of the puppy, did the breeder start crate training (many do), was your puppy started inside or outside (outside puppies typically take longer to housebreak), how old is your puppy, etc.
The age of your puppy plays a big part in how often they need to go out and how long they should be crated without a potty break. Puppies under six months need to go out more often. Puppies under 12 weeks really don’t even have the muscles to built up to “hold it”. Age is a very important factor in house training.
When your puppy has an accident, DO NOT scold it, punish it, etc. These old training methods can actually make housebreaking even harder, since dogs do not think like us. They do not understand you’re upset about the act of doing it it, their brain tells them that you don’t like like p*e or p**p and start finding place to “hide” and go to the bathroom (like behind the couch, in the basement, somewhere out of sight…). This will also make it so they do not want to go potty when you take them outside on a leash, there by complicating housebreaking even more.
Also, if you have a young puppy…be prepared for accidents by having some odor neutralizer available to apply after you clean up that accident, or it will leave a calling card for your puppy to have another accident in the future.
There is SO MUCH MORE I could say about this topic…but I’ll stop here. If you’d like more information about housebreaking, or training in general, please let me know. I’d LOVE to join you on your training journey!!
