A Beginner’s Guide To Housebreaking A Puppy

06 Mar 2010

6 Mar, 2010 Puppy Training

Housebreaking a puppy is the process of training your dog to urinate and defecate. Because puppies cannot hold their bowels or urine until they are around three months old, they need to be accustomed to the procedure through housebreaking.

Housebreaking a puppy often takes a lot of time. You need to understand that the learning skills of your puppy can be very different from the skills of another; therefore, training should not be rushed.

To start the housebreaking process, you should keep your puppy in a crate or a small room in your house. It should be secured not by a closed door, but a baby gate. In this new place, your puppy is going to learn to stand up and run around; it must be comfortable in this place before it can begin to learn.

It is believed that the best approach to housebreaking a puppy is to set, and stick to, a simple routine. If you are consistent with your training methods, you will find that your puppy will learn faster and better. Regularly changing a puppy’s routine will confuse it, and confused puppies make slow, if any, progress.

The next step you need to take to housebreak your puppy is to determine the area of your yard that you want your puppy to use as its potty area. This is where your puppy will do all of its training as this is going to be your puppy’s comfort zone.

What you should do is take your puppy to the potty area every day. When it begins to urinate or defecate, give the puppy a treat, or show it some love. This is necessary to let your puppy know that it is doing what you want and that you are pleased with its behavior.

Talk to your puppy as much as you can whilst its in the potty area, using phrases like ‘go pee’ and ‘go poo’. Keep the phrases short and simple, and use a consistent tone, and your puppy will quickly learn to recognize what you are saying.

Consistency really is the key to success with this. Take your puppy to his comfort zone the moment it wakes up in the morning and just prior to putting it to bed at night.

Another important consideration to take into account is when you feed your puppy. Again, consistency is important. Choose your feeding times and stick to them, even if it begs for food at other times.

Feed your puppy according to a schedule so that you can begin to learn its bowel and urine habits. You decrease the likelihood of your puppy defecating or urinating inside the house if you know about what times of day it normally needs to relieve itself.

Furthermore, it is important to make sure that the puppy is getting the right diet, so as to keep his bowel movement regular and his stool firm. This eliminates accidents of inadvertent pooping due to loose bowels.
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