pup tip - house training I

This is also known as "toilet training" for dogs, although it doesn't actually involve toilets, as such, just toilet-ing.  In American publications you might see this referred to as "house breaking".  Basically, it means teaching your dog where it is and is not acceptable to wee and poo.

Start house training as soon as you bring your pup home.  As with all training, timing is the key to early success and you will need to be committed to the cause in the early days.  Remember the consistency I'm always banging on about?  Well, that applies here too.  Big time.  If you catch your puppy in the act of getting ready to wee indoors every time and you say no every time and quickly hustle him outside to do the deed every time, then he will learn very quickly that that is what he must do every time.  If your puppy manages to do an indoor wee without being stopped, then he will learn that he can wee indoors.  Even if only gets away with it sometimes.

So, what happens if you scold your puppy for weeing or pooing indoors?  Even worse - what if you punish him for doing so?  What will happen is he will hide away from you to do it.  That's a fact and that is why you should never, ever scold or punish your puppy for relieving himself indoors.  He has to go somewhere and he simply does not know any better.  It is up to you to teach him where is allowed to go.  You simply show him what he is allowed to do rather than telling him off for doing what he is not allowed to do.  That means you need to keep your eye on him and take him out a lot in the beginning.

Taito squatting for a wee in the garden, aged 8 weeks.


















And what do you do when your puppy does his business outside?  As with all training, you give him praise and treats. You act as if he just accomplished the most outstanding feat of puppy amazingness.  Make him feel good about relieving himself in the correct place. 

It's up to you to know when your puppy is likely to need to relieve himself. And, in the beginning, it will be often.  Very often.  These are the times to take your puppy outside for a wee and/or poo:

• As soon as he wakes up
• As soon as he finishes eating
• Every 20 minutes while he is awake or playing
• If he is busily walking around sniffing the floor, particularly when going in circles
• Every time he asks to go out

You might need to have a bit of an eagle eye for recognising that your puppy is asking to go out.  They start asking really surprisingly early on.  Even the little 6-and-7-week-olds start asking before they ever leave us here.  But it doesn't necessarily mean your puppy will go up to the door and bark or scratch.  That comes much later.  At first look for the puppy just hanging around or sitting next to the door.  Or keep a watch for your puppy gazing at the door.  Or just barking frantically for no apparent reason.

Neka gave us a challenge.  She was asking to go out really quickly in her training, but her way of asking was a casual glance in our direction as she strolled across the living room towards the back door.  Funny girl.  It took us a while to catch on that this was her sign, but once we spotted it, we had the house training cracked.

For more on house training, have a look at this later post.