HOUSE TRAINING

When you research house training you will find all different kinds of advice from using puppy pads and spending weeks slowly moving them out side, to punishing any accidents and rubbing the puppy or dogs nose in it.

It has never taken me more than a week to have a house trained dog (save the odd excited wee or accident if I have had to leave to long, these just took a month or so to smooth out)

Let me first address the new craze of having puppy pads placed where your dog usually goes and slowly moving them closer to the door, although this does eventually work you are making the entire hose training process so drawn out and the inital stage of each change of placement very confusing for the dog. Dogs learn an area far easier than to when bursting for the toilet to look for a pad thats being moved around, all your are infact doing is reteaching house training every few days rather than teaching the area once and then being consistent. Puppy pads have there place I would just use them by the door incase the dog doesnt make it out or I miss the signals s/he needs to go out, and I would absolutely not be praising the use of the pad to encourage going in the house which is something down the line I will begin to ask the dog not to do.

Now lets talk about the idea of punishment, weather its shouting, smacking or rubbing the dogs nose in it, none of these will be of any use to you and infact will likely lead to your dog trying to hide the accidents by either going in hidden places or poop eating (which will become a hard habbit to break). Infact if there is a time delay from your dog having an accident and the punishment, for example you getting home or out of bed, studies show that actually your dog is more very unlikely to even be able to connect the punishment to the accident. so its an entirely loose, loose situation that just causes stress all round.

​

My choice of housetraining is very simple as I mentioned i would use puppy pads just as floor protection not a training aid.Then its `a case of knowing your dogs signs for needing to go out (sniffing around more than usual and circular walking usually) as soon as you spot these pick the dog up and place then outside ( you may need to stand out too at first if your puppy is young they are likely to want to run back to you but do not speak or make eye contact with the dog). Once out wait a little and see if they need to go, the moment they do you need to give lots of ecited praise and a reward like a treat or toy. If you catch the dog going in the house mid act then give a simple sharp ‘ahah’ or ‘no’ then pick the dog up (yes whilst still going 8/10 times they will stop as soon as picked up but even if not remember this is for long term goal of clean home) place them out side and again give lots of praise if they go but if they dont then simply stand outside with them or inside watching but do not make eye contact or speak to the dog at all. On the occasions you come home to mess do not punish, just quietly lead your dog out, clean up and if they go again while out you must give praise no matter how angry you feel about the initial accident 

​

You can add a word for going outside such as ‘go toilet’ initially you should only give the command as the dog already is going then praise.

You can also use same technique to teacgh the dog to only go in a certain area of the garden (many people use a little fence to corner off a section where the dog is allowed to go toilet which makes cleaning up easer)

NEVER USE BLEACH OR AMMONIA BASED CLEANING the ammonia in these products leaves behind the same chemical scent as urine and therefore will encourage weeing in the house

As a rule a puppy can hold its bladder for an hour per month of age (2 monrths old-3 hours, 5 months old-6 hours etc) use this as a guide on how often to let your dog out 

Its a very simple idea but it works!