Potty Training Basics

Behavior

Potty train­ing is teach­ing a dog where to use the restroom.  Most peo­ple want a dog to go potty out­side.  This post is geared toward out­side train­ing when using a crate.

First, the basics:

• Pre­vent the dog from going potty in the house.  Man­age the envi­ron­ment to a small sec­tion of the house so you can always super­vise your dog.  Crate your dog when you can’t super­vise him.  Put your dog on a food and water sched­ule.  Reward your dog out­side as soon as he is done going potty.
• If you acquired your dog from a breeder, or a res­cue group that has fos­ter par­ents, hope­fully these peo­ple have been pro­mot­ing proper potty habits.  If you acquired your dog from a shel­ter with ken­nels, or a pet store, please remem­ber the only place for the dog to elim­i­nate was in his kennel/cage and he may take longer to potty train.
• Pup­pies under six months of age are still learn­ing how to con­trol their mus­cles.  The rule of thumb for pup­pies is that they can “hold it” for a time equal to their age.  Exam­ple: A two month old puppy can hold them­selves for two hours.  A three month old puppy can hold them­selves for three hours.  Now this “equa­tion” is not set in stone and the time can vary either up or down depend­ing on the dog.
• Pup­pies need to relieve them­selves: after sleep­ing; before, dur­ing and after play; before and after eat­ing or drink­ing; and before allow­ing the puppy to roam about your home.
• Acci­dents can and will hap­pen.  The more super­vi­sion with the dog, the less acci­dents will hap­pen.  Make sure to clean up acci­dents as soon as pos­si­ble with an enzy­matic cleaner.
• Pun­ish­ment does NOT work with any kind of potty train­ing!  It does not mat­ter if you catch your dog in the act.  The only thing a dog learns when humans get angry and yell is that the act of elim­i­na­tion is not to be seen by humans.  Dogs think “I’m mak­ing a pid­dle, and my human is yelling.  I’m sorry, I didn’t know that would make you very angry.  I’ll go out of your site the next time I have to use the facil­i­ties and hide it.”  Now pun­ish­ing a dog for elim­i­na­tion in the house “after-the-fact” is just plain con­fus­ing for the dog.  Remem­ber, what­ever the dog was doing last is what the dog will think the cor­rec­tion is for.  May be the dog was chew­ing on his toy and not the TV remote con­trol, or may be the dog was com­ing to you at the front door.  Do not rub the dog’s face in the mess unless you want to encour­age eat­ing poop.
• Hav­ing a dog on both a food and water sched­ule helps tremen­dously.  If you know when it goes in, you will have a very good idea when it’s com­ing out.
• Reward­ing the dog for proper potty habits will encour­age proper potty habits.  If a dog thinks they are the next best thing to sliced bread for using the restroom out­side, they will want to repeat that behav­ior.  Remem­ber, in train­ing a dog for any behav­ior, tim­ing and con­sis­tency are crit­i­cal.  This means, every time the dog elim­i­nates out­side we reward the dog on the spot.  If the reward is too late (like wait­ing until the dog has entered the house) the dog could very well asso­ciate another behav­ior for the reward, like enter­ing the house, or sit­ting for the treat.  If the reward in not con­sis­tent enough, the dog will be con­fused and potty train­ing will take much longer.
• Most dogs like a clean liv­ing area.  Crates, a small room, and baby gates are some tools used to help a dog learn to hold themselves.
• Most dogs like to relieve them­selves on soft sur­faces.  This is why most dogs pre­fer grass to con­crete.  In the house: car­pet, the sofa, the bed (dog’s or human’s,) and soft blan­kets in a crate are usu­ally the spots dogs use to elim­i­nate.  Dur­ing potty train­ing (espe­cially with pup­pies) it is strongly rec­om­mended to NOT put any kind of soft mate­r­ial in the crate.

Some com­mon potty train­ing problems:

I let my dog out­side and all he does is play.  I’ve even been out­side for an hour hop­ing the dog will use the facil­i­ties and noth­ing hap­pens. — 1. The dog may not want to mess up his “play area.” A spe­cific part of the yard needs to be used, or a walk around the block.  2. The dog has learned it doesn’t need to elim­i­nate to reward him­self out­side with play.  The dog needs five min­utes max­i­mum out­side to relieve him­self, and if noth­ing hap­pens the dog goes back into the crate for three to five more min­utes.  Repeat the process until the dog elim­i­nates out­side, and reward as soon as the dog’s fin­ished.  (Remem­ber the dog is the next best thing to sliced bread for elim­i­nat­ing outside.)

I let my dog out­side for a rea­son­able amount of time and as soon as I let him inside he pees on the floor.  — 1. The dog may think he is sup­posed to go inside.  This hap­pens when there is not enough super­vi­sion and the dog goes at will inside, and the human(s) just don’t notice the messes; and/or there is a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the dog, mean­ing an error in tim­ing of the reward and con­sis­tency of reward­ing the dog.  More super­vi­sion is needed and the dog needs to be crated or leashed to a human when left inside the house.  The dog needs five min­utes max­i­mum out­side to relieve him­self, and if noth­ing hap­pens the dog goes back into the crate for three to five more min­utes.  Repeat the process until the dog elim­i­nates out­side, and reward as soon as the dog’s fin­ished.  2. The dog may not want to mess up his “play area.”  A spe­cific part of the yard needs to be used as a potty area, or a walk around the block.

My dog is great in the house except for one room. -  1. The dog doesn’t under­stand the entire house is his home too, (and there are prob­a­bly other messes that have gone unde­tected.)  Crate train­ing was prob­a­bly moved along too fast.  The dog should be back in the crate and moved along at a much slower rate as the “house expands.”  Mean­ing, the dog has the crate.  Then the dog has the crate and the kitchen.  Then the dog has the crate, the kitchen, and the hall­way, etc.  2. The dog smells the last time he elim­i­nated in the same spot.  Clean the area with an enzy­matic cleaner.  Do NOT use any­thing ammo­nia based, since ammo­nia is one of the main ingre­di­ents in urine.  3. The dog may be mark­ing his ter­ri­tory.  Start the “Noth­ing In Life Is Free” pro­gram.  Super­vise the dog at all times so acci­dents don’t occur.  Spay or neuter the dog.

My dog was com­pletely potty trained and just now started to pid­dle a small amount every­where around the house. — 1. The dog may be mark­ing his ter­ri­tory.  Start a NILIF pro­gram.  Use a crate and reward out­side potty habits more.  Train the dog to hit a bell to go out­side.  Super­vise the dog at all times so acci­dents don’t occur.  Spay or neuter the dog.  2. The dog may have a med­ical con­di­tion.  See your veterinarian.

My dog elim­i­nates in the crate.  — 1. The dog is not prop­erly crate trained or could be under stress.  2. The dog is in the crate too long.  Dogs usu­ally don’t want to potty in a crate, this doesn’t mean they won’t potty in a crate if left in one too long. Put the dog on a food, water, and walk sched­ule.  Give the dog more oppor­tu­ni­ties out­side to elim­i­nate.  3. There is some­thing soft in the crate that can absorb the pee.  Take out any­thing soft and fluffy from the bot­tom of the crate.  (Remem­ber dogs like to elim­i­nate on soft things.)

My puppy pees on the way to the door (or at the door) when I let him out of the crate or when I am going to let him out­side.  — 1. The puppy doesn’t have com­plete mus­cle con­trol yet.  Move­ment usu­ally stim­u­lates a puppy to elim­i­nate.  (This is why they must potty before and dur­ing and after play­time.)  Carry the puppy out­side to use the bath­room.  Give the puppy more fre­quent potty breaks.  Dis­tract with food or a toy to get the puppy outside.

My dog goes out­side and then fakes going to the bath­room.  — 1. BE HAPPY!!! (Espe­cially if this is a puppy fak­ing it.)  If your dog fakes using the facil­i­ties out­side, your dog is telling you that he knows what is expected of him. He is try­ing to make his human happy, and he under­stands potty habits out­side gets him rewards.  2. The dog is not fak­ing it, but strain­ing to elim­i­nate.  This can be a med­ical emer­gency and should be seen by a vet­eri­nar­ian as soon as possible.

THINGS TO REMEMBER:

• Tim­ing. Reward the dog as soon as the dog has fin­ished elim­i­nat­ing out­side.  Don’t wait.
• Con­sis­tency. Reward the dog every time he elim­i­nates outside.
• Super­vise. If the dog is con­sis­tently under super­vi­sion, (espe­cially pup­pies) the dog will have a lot less room for error and will mess in the house less frequently.
• Ask­ing to go out. Train the dog to hit a bell or bark to go outside.
• Crate Train. Most dogs are den clean, mean­ing that they don’t want to mess up their home.  This makes it eas­ier for a dog to want to “hold it.”
• Sched­ule. A food and water sched­ule ensures a time frame for elim­i­nat­ing instead of guess­ing when the dog has to potty.  Also have sev­eral sched­uled times per day for the dog to go out­side and relieve himself.
• Patience. Potty Train­ing is some­times a slow process.  Under­stand some dogs can take up to six months to com­pletely potty train.
• Reward. Any­thing the dog wants.  For most dogs this is food, play, praise, and petting.
• Log every­thing. This is espe­cially help­ful if you have an entire fam­ily who is “help­ing” with the potty train­ing.  View an exam­ple of a potty train­ing log HERE

Tags: Dog, Pet, potty training, puppy, Training | Comments (3)