Potty Training 101
There are a few major factors that contribute to successfully potty training a puppy/ dog. I want you to think about all dog behaviors as habits from here on out. In order to shape great habits, we must encourage desirable behaviors, of course the converse is true as well. To ensure success, we must control: The environment, crate training, the times we take the dog outside, the timing of food and water intake, reinforcement when we have success and interruption if we catch them in an accident. These are the same rules whether your dog has been through my boarding program or if we are doing in-home lessons and you are doing 100% of the training.
Lets dissect these into their own separate sections:
The environment: You control the environment your dog exists in. The environment can help or hurt your dog's potty training. You need to set up your environment so that your dog has no way of having an accident without you being present. This means having your dog on leash, using the crate effectively, using a baby gate/ play pen to strategically keep your dog with you at all times. Most people struggle with staying with the dog 100% of the time when the dog is out of the crate, and this one piece of advice will make or break successful potty training. There are plenty of excuses why clients may fail at this portion, but the fact of the matter is that you need to watch the dog. In today's world our attention is pulled in so many different directions, I speak from experience when I say fix the problem before it exists. Pay attention now so we are not fixing accidents later! Potty training young is exponentially easier than potty training an older dog. So to summarize this section, watch the dog at all times!
Crate Training: I could write a book on why crate training should be mandatory for any house dog, so I will try to keep this short. Crate training your dog gives you a SAFE place to put your dog when you cannot give them your attention. The crate also discourages accidents because dogs do not like laying in their own pee/ poop so a dog with any bladder control will naturally hold it rather than sit in it. On top of the peace of mind that comes with the crate for potty training, crate training prevents: separation anxiety, destructive behavior, it allows your dog to be boarded in the future and it is a place for your dog to decompress/ take a break. Literally just using your crate prevents all of these issues from ever beginning. The crate is not a punishment, the crate is not jail or any other negative association people make out of empathy. I understand that YOU would not want to sit in a crate, but YOU are not a den animal, dogs ARE a den animal. Look at the crate as their own room/ space. They learn to love the crate if you are holding up your end of the bargain with walks, training, exercise etc. Again at the potty training stage, you only need to put them in the crate when you are not paying attention to them. Properly size your crate for success. Too big of a crate will result in a young puppy that goes to one side of the crate to relieve themselves and then go back to the other side to lay down, your are then making the error of reinforcing peeing in the crate as an acceptable behavior. Your dog should have enough space to lay down and turn around, thats about it dogs will not want to lay in their pee/poop. You can use potty pads to line your crate for easy clean up for 0-8 week old puppies, just do not train your dog to pee on the pads with rewards, this leads to issues of dogs that only want to pee on surfaces similar to potty pads ie. carpet, rugs, dog beds, towels, your clothes etc. Do your best to train your dog to go outside from day 1.
Timing and Note Taking: Timing and note taking are absolutely essential to potty training quickly and effectively. Upon starting your potty training process, I want you to go on your phone and start a new note for your dogs potty training. On this note you are going to write down literally every single potty movement, accident or success, WRITE IT DOWN!! I write down whether it is a pee/ poop, the time, and whether it was an accident or not. If the trip was an accident, where did the accident happen. Just taking these easy notes will show you very quickly how frequently your dog needs to go out. It is a common sense solution that is not commonly practiced. Once you have two to three days of notes you will intuitively know when to take your puppy out and your stress levels will be much lower because of it.
What goes in comes back out: This part is also intuitive but not commonly talked about. If your dog is eating or drinking at the same times every day, their poop and pee schedule will be the same or close to the same daily. Write the feeding in your notes! The easiest way to get your dog on the right track is to feed once in the morning and once in the evening, no third meal as that makes things more difficult for you. Set a timer, put a sticky note on the fridge... just find a way to feed your dog at the same time every day to time those poops. Water breaks are more difficult because water goes right through puppies. I do not give puppies free access to water without setting a timer for 30-45 minutes later to go outside. I also do not give puppies water after 7:00 pm so that they can hold their bladder overnight. Remember: that what goes in will come back out.
Reward vs Punishment: This is the easy part, when your puppy goes to the bathroom outside, give them praise and a food reward. Throw a little party every time they go outside. Always leave a bag of food by the door so it is easy to remember! If you follow these instructions, you are bound to catch your puppy in the act of having an accident, when you catch them in the act (NOT AFTER)you can clap loudly and say no in a firm tone, if that doesn’t stop the behavior, you can give them a light spank on the backside and say “no”. Just find some way to interrupt or make peeing/ pooping in the house unpleasant. Be sure to praise your dog when they go outside so they do not think they should be hiding from you to relieve themselves.
These are the instructions to properly potty train your dog, or to maintain your dog's training coming home from our boarding program. The last thing I will leave you with is to expect accidents, it is going to happen (way less if your dog was boarded with me, like way less). As long as you have far more successes than failures, you will wake up one day soon, peacefully, knowing you will not be cleaning pee and poop multiple times that day. I look forward to hearing all of your success stories.
The Head Tilt Society