Everyone wants a dog that is house-trained and doesn’t go potty indoors. This is obvious for us humans but not as obvious for your new puppy. He will need some friendly help and guidance from you in the beginning.
The best way to help your puppy will be reinforcing his behavior in the right way, at the right time. The more you focus on how to potty train your puppy in the first three months with your puppy, the faster he will be fully house-trained.
How to best reinforce your puppy’s behavior
Whenever your puppy wakes up from his sleeps or naps, it’s a good time to take him outside. You should also do this after every time your puppy is eating or drinking and ALWAYS after playing with him. When the puppy has zoomies in the evening, he’ll also most likely drink a lot, and as a result…. pee a lot!
When you want your puppy to go potty, walk slowly back and forth in a small area, or walk around a tree until your puppy relieves himself. If you just keep walking forwards, there are too many interesting things to see and smell so your puppy might get distracted and forget about going potty.
It’s also important to learn to follow your puppy’s body language: just before he has to go, he’ll probably start running around in circles, sniffing the ground and being a bit restless.. When you learn to see these signs, you can quickly pick him up, take him outside, and show him a good place to go.
Keep It Positive
When he is little, your puppy does not have bladder control and needs to relieve himself up to 30 times a day. So it’s very likely there will be some little accidents on the way!
You should never scold or punish your puppy for an accident indoors. He really doesn’t understand having done anything wrong, as from his perspective, there is no difference between peeing on the lawn and peeing on the carpet. If you tell him off, he will only learn that he shouldn’t go potty in front of you, and he will go to pee in places where you can’t see him, such as behind the sofa or under the bed.
Instead of telling your puppy off when he pees in a wrong place, you should show him where he should go, and then praise him excitedly for doing the right thing. Your puppy is super eager to please you so he will eventually learn that going potty outdoors will make you happy and he will remember it for the rest of his life!
Online Puppy Training for all puppies!
With OneMind Dogs you will train your puppy by understanding your dog’s point of view. Instead of forcing human interactions on a dog, you will learn to create a mutual understanding with your puppy: a bond so strong it feels like you have one mind.
