Housetraining Tips and Advice
April 26, 2009 by admin
Filed under Uncategorized
No training is more basic for pet owners than that first important lesson: Do it outside!
Teaching your pet to eliminate outside the home, not in it, usually starts between six and eight weeks of age. Dogs as young as four weeks have been started on the program, but at that age they may not have the muscular control to succeed.
With any dog training program, trainer patience is as important as the dog’s temperament. ‘Sit’, ‘stay’ and other behaviors can often be learned in a few days. House breaking typically takes weeks – sometimes as short as two, often a month or more.
As with other learned behaviors, it helps to watch for signs of the daily duty and enforce and direct them with a voice command followed by praise. In this case that technique works even more to the trainer’s advantage, since all dogs will naturally eliminate. The tactic is to get them to do it when and where you want!
Observe for circling or squatting, then pick up the pup, say ‘outside’ and dash outside. The puppy may circle some more, but will often promptly squat. Once it starts, say ‘Go potty’ ( or some other unique phrase) in a clear, firm (but not angry) voice. Once the puppy has finished, lavish him with praises.
You won’t always be able to catch the puppy about to begin, but don’t become angry or impatient when the dog eliminates indoors. It takes some time for your puppy to learn to tell you it’s time to ‘go outside’. It also takes time for the muscles needed to control bladder and bowels to mature.
Usually,young dogs need to eliminate every 2-3 hours. If you haven’t spotted pre-elimination behavior within that time, take the dog outside anyway. Issue the command ‘Go potty’ and wait. At first, usually, the dog will have no clue what you want.
Especially, even when outside, it helps to wait and observe for the desired behavior then issue the command. That helps the dog associate the command with the behavior. If the dog hasn’t eliminated after a few minutes and a few ‘Go potty’ commands, take it back inside for an hour. Of course, if you see the pre-elimination behavior in less time, go outside again immediately.
Puppies have a surprising ability to quickly learn what their ‘alpha’ (the leader of the pack) wants. This is almost always accomplished by associating a verbal command with behavior, followed by praise. Punishment is usually counter-productive, and nowhere more so than in waste elimination training. Never rub your pup’s nose in waste.
Paper and/or crate training is preferred by some. A pup can be trained to potty on a newspaper, or on one of the chemically treated pads designed for the purpose. Some small breeds that live all day in the home may not need to go outside at all.
The technique has a couple of downsides however. Unlike cats, dogs will hardly go in a perfumed litter box. Newspapers (even with the top layer removed after the dog goes) will eventually create an unpleasant smell in the house.
Also, long before the odor becomes repulsive to humans, the aroma is a heavenly scent for dogs. Dogs don’t find the smell unattractive – quite the opposite. And that is where the problem lays.
Dogs that are paper trained sometimes will prefer to potty indoors. Sometimes they’ll miss the paper by only an inch, creating a smelly mess to clean up.
Once the scent is deposited in the carpet, the dog will continue to seek that spot out as its proper ‘place to go’. This makes training the dog to eliminate outside even more difficult. Best to suffer a few accidents than to create a hard-to-overcome habit.
Patience, praise and consistency are the keys to any dog training. Elimination training is the first challenge for you and your dog.
Get more tips and advice on housetraining or dog training at Luvurdog.com/dogtraining
