Housetraining Guide
Written by George Anderson
Wednesday, 12 May 2004
Now that you have brought your new puppy home you are going to have to train him or her not to soil in the house. You will need lots of patience because over the next few weeks your puppy is going to have accidents in the most inappropriate places. Under no circumstances should you ever punish your puppy for having an accident, he does not understand that it is not OK to relieve himself wherever he wants to. It is up to you to teach him otherwise, and you should do it with kindness and reward, not fear and punishment. For those with children, do you remember how long it took to get your toddler out of nappies and using a potty? When the child soiled its nappy did you shove its nose in it? I certainly hope not, and neither should you shove your puppy’s nose in its own droppings.
Starting house training: In the beginning you should as much as possible keep the puppy in an area where the floor is easily cleaned, tiled or vinyl flooring. Ideally someone should be at home for the first few weeks after you bring your puppy home so that he can be taken out as necessary.
Puppies sleep quite a bit and on awakening often need to relieve themselves, so as soon as her wakens take him outside to the area you want him to go on. Stay very close to him and as soon as he has relieved himself praise, pet, and reward with a treat and take him back inside. If you see him sniffing about the floor in circles, this is often a sign that he is looking for somewhere to go, immediately take him outside and again stay close to him and patiently wait for him to perform and again praise, pet, and reward before taking him inside.
Often after they have been fed puppies need to relieve themselves so after each feed take him outside and wait until he has done his business, again praise, pet, and reward. So, every time your puppy relieves himself outside he gets praised, petted, and rewarded with a nice food treat.
What happens if your puppy relieves himself indoors? In a word nothing! No punishment, but even more important to him, no reward. If you walk into a room and there is a little pile or puddle, totally ignore the fact it is there, take the puppy out of the room then return and clean it up. Don’t let him see you clean up, or at some time he may start to clean up for you, and the last thing you want is to have a puppy that is eating its own dirt.
Nor do you want a dog that is terrified that there is pee or poo on the floor because he knows he is going to get punished because it is there. Not because he did it, but because he has completely forgotten that he did it 2 or 3 seconds after the deed was done. All your puppy knows is that he is going to get shouted at or hit because of what is on the floor, so quite often they will eat their own dirt to remove the evidence.
Never tell him off for doing it in the wrong place outside or you will end up with a totally confused dog. Just like the person who phoned me as their puppy was messing behind the furniture, it turned out that they punished the pup for soiling in the house and for soiling in the wrong places outside (the garden). That poor pup didn’t know where he was supposed to go, so he did the only thing he could and that was to do it in places it wouldn’t be seen.
If your puppy does have an accident, the best thing to clean up with is a solution of one part white vinegar to three parts cold water. This removes the smell, not only to you but more importantly to the pup. How it works, is that the dog’s urine is alkali and the vinegar is acid and the two combined neutralise each other. This is fine for tiles and vinyl flooring but you need to be careful with carpets as it may remove the colour. For carpets you can use a mild solution of biological washing liquid or powder in lukewarm water. Before using these solutions remove as much of the soiling as possible with tissues or kitchen roll before washing over where the accident occurred.
Remember too when walking your puppy or adult dog in public places to carry a poop scoop or at least plastic bags to pick up anything he leaves behind. There are enough anti-dog people out there without causing any more by not cleaning up after yours. All of this applies to adult dogs as well as puppies, the only difference is that it may take a bit longer to house train an adult dog that has never been house trained and adult dogs also leave bigger deposits than puppies.
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