House Training

House-training can be a stressful experience for both dog and owner. Toileting in the house is obviously an undesirable behaviour, which owners are keen to resolve as quickly as possible.

Solution

• Dogs are naturally clean animals and will prefer not to foul their sleeping or eating areas, which makes them easy to train with a little patience and understanding.

• Dogs don’t immediately differentiate between indoors and outdoors. So if his normal place to sleep and eat is in the kitchen, to the dog it may be just as convenient to defecate in the front room as it is the garden. Similarly, once your dog has learnt the place to go is the garden, he doesn’t necessarily understand that he is also allowed to use other outside areas.

Paper/pad training
This is a common method of training which involves putting down paper or one of the many makes of commercial ‘puppy pads’. Initially the dog is restricted to an area which is completely covered with the chosen material so that he cannot fail to hit his target. Gradually the paper is reduced to a small square which can then be moved slowly towards the door and eventually out into the garden.

Crate training
An increasingly popular form of house-training which involves the use of an indoor kennel or crate. The dog sleeps and eats in the crate and generally associates it as his “den” area. When the owner is busy or cannot be watching him, he can be restricted to his crate area but given regular opportunities to go out and relieve himself.

 

 

DO'S AND DON'TS

• Do praise puppy enthusiastically whenever he gets it right

• Do put a command word to his ‘performances’ i.e. “Be clean”

• Do take puppy out frequently (he only has a small bladder)

• Do use a ‘Houseline’ or lead whenever possible to encourage puppy outside rather than carry him. This way he will eventually learn to take himself there

• Do use a product to clean up accidents that is specifically designed for the job. Ammonia based products may actually encourage puppy to mark the area again

• Do learn to watch for tell-tale signs that puppy needs to go e.g. sniffing and circling

• Don’t punish puppy for toileting in the house, he is just likely to associate the punishment with toileting in the owners presence, not for his mistake

• Don’t leave puppy in the garden alone and presume he has performed, stay and watch him

• Don’t expect the puppy to signal that he needs to go out

• Don’t expect puppy to go for long periods without toileting he needs to be given a place or opportunity to relieve himself regularly, even at night-time

• Don’t remove puppies water at night to prevent peeing, he needs constant access to fresh water

• Don’t feed puppy too close to bed time, it will just make him need to defecate approximately an hour later