Housebreaking Your Puppy

By Blog Administrator - 01:03

Housebreaking Your Puppy

Puppies should be housebroken at an early age, preferably as close to 8 weeks old as possible because this is when the period of stable learning begins in adolescent dogs. Their minds are wide open to suggestions, and they learn quite quickly at this early stage of life If you expect to yield successful results, you must be willing to devote some quality time to the task. Recognize that puppies have four fairly predictable elimination times:

1. After waking
2. After eating
3. After exercising
4. Just before retiring for the night

Make a concerted effort to take your puppy outside at these times, and every 3 to 4 hours in between. When you suspect that it has to go, take your pup outside and set it down in the grass.

If elimination takes place, praise your puppy, and then take it immediately back inside the house. By doing so, you will help it associate the act with the location. If a minute passes and your puppy hasn’t gone, take it back inside. Don’t leave it outside to play or roam. Puppies trained in this manner soon realize that their primary business for being outside is to eliminate, not to play. What happens if you catch your puppy in mid act? If this is the case, go ahead and rush it outside. The puppy might finish what it started before you make it out the door, but don’t get upset. Again, praise it immensely for going outside, and then bring it immediately back inside. If you happen to miss an accident altogether, don’t fret. If you saw it happen, a verbal punishment is warranted. On the other hand, if you didn’t see it happen, do nothing. Simply try to be more attentive next time.
Other house training tips to remember are :
1. Be sure that your puppy is current on its vaccines (since it will be going outside) and is free of intestinal parasites. The latter is very important because the presence of worms in the intestinal tract will cause unpredictable urges to eliminate.
2. Always use lots of praise; never physically punish. Again, remember that puppies crave praise, and if they don’t get it, they feel punished. Give plenty of praise when they deserve it; hold it back when they don’t.
3. When verbal punishment is indicated, avoid associating your puppy’s name with the reprimand. For instance, simply say “bad,” instead of “bad dog, Sugar.” By leaving names out of it, the puppy won’t associate its name with the bad behavior.
4. Establish a regular feeding schedule for your new puppy. Feed no more than twice daily, and take your puppy outside after it finishes each meal. It is preferable to feed the evening portion before 6:00 P.M. in order to help reduce the number of overnight accidents that can occur otherwise.
5. To help prevent accidents, keep your puppy in a confined area at night. It should be puppy proofed and have a floor that won’t be damaged if a slip up occurs. Utility rooms and half-bathrooms work well for this purpose, as do kitchens if they can be cornered off. If accidents occurs during the night or while you are away, don’t get upset. As your training sessions progress, you’ll find that this will become less and less of a problem. A natural instinct of any canine is to keep its “den” clean. These inherent instincts, combined with correct house training efforts on your part, will help fuel the success of your training efforts.
6. When cleaning up an accident, always use an odor neutralizer rather than a deodorizer on the area in question. These are avail- able at most pet stores, and will usually eliminate any lingering scents that can lure your pet back to the same spot. Avoid using ammonia-based cleaners, since ammonia is a normal component of canine urine. Such cleaners might serve to attract, rather than to repel, repeat offenders.

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