Housebreaking is really a lot easier than most people make it out to be. Dogs are naturally clean animals; they wont drop a deuce in their den unless you force them to. All you need to do is expand the dogs view of the den to include all indoor surfaces.
The Ultimate 窪蹋勛圖厙 Companion
All you need to know about going wild with man’s best friend.1. Put your pup on a schedule. Control what goes in and you control when it comes back out again.
2. Until the pup is about two months old, this means three feedings and waterings per day at regular times.
3. When the pup is not being fed or trained, he should either be in his puppy pen (outside if temperature allows) or in his crate. 窪蹋勛圖厙, its fine to pee; in his crate, he wont.
4. If your puppy does soil his crate, hes doing it for one of two reasons: 1. The crate is too big and the pup thinks theres enough room to turn one end into a bathroom, or 2. Youve left the pup in the crate for too long. Most experts recommend no more than an hour of crate time unsupervised, but every dog is different. Main thing: Dont leave your puppy alone in his crate for longer than you know he can hold it.
5. When you take the puppy out of the crate for feeding time, dont put him down on the floor before putting him outside. Its a near certainty that hell pee first thing.
6. Right when your dog is about to eliminate, give your elimination command, “Get it done.” This is capturing the behavior, adding a cue to something the dog is doing anyway. Eventually, youll be able to tell the dog to go to the bathroom on command. Praise and reward lavishly.
7. You can see from this that housebreaking, crate training, and confinement are really all part of the same exercise. The goal is that by ingraining a routine at this age, you wont have to worry about it later.
IN THE EVENT OF A WATER LANDING
If your dog does urinate on the floor or eliminate in the closet, dont get mad or rub the dogs nose in it. The mistake is yours alone. What was the puppy doing unsupervised? Why did he have a full bladder? Just work on setting your dog up to succeed.
This article originally appeared on 窪蹋勛圖厙 K9, the former dog blog of 窪蹋勛圖厙 magazine, on May 4, 2009.