How to toilet train a puppy

Read this article to help with issues and problems around toilet training.

Fast track toilet training 

There are number of contributions why you your puppy may be struggling to get house broken, I will list these, then describe in detail about the reasons behind them and what you can do to speed up this process for all concerned. 

• Laminate flooring
• Reward
• Confusion
• Timing
• Consistency
• Recongnising the sign
• What breeder used
• Our interaction

Laminate Flooring

 This modern flooring concept we use these days to furnish our homes causes a problem for puppies, because it's the same surface throughout the downstairs of most homes. So for instance if you are trying to use news paper as the starting point for house breaking, when the puppy is walking around on a nice hard floor, he or she will not detect they are actually standing on the news paper, so of course will start to soil any whrere but the news paper. My advice is get some of cuts of carpet and place your training pads or news paper on these. This has the same effect as when a puppy goes on the grass, the change of surface will trigger the mind to soil. Of course start as you mean to carry on, by taking your puppy out lots in the garden and when he or she does there stuff, reward as they are doing it. Which leads us nicely onto the next subject rewards.

Rewards

I have already wrote an article on rewards and finding what is the most powerful reward for your dog. In the case of puppies, the most powerful reward would be the touch or stroke. So when you are first starting out in house breaking your puppy, you should use the touch and voice together once they are perfoming their toilets, and if you introduce a word command of say 'pow' which stands for poop or wee at the same time, this is only a suggestion by the way, this command will encourage your puppy to go to the toilet.

Confusion

.This is when a puppy doesn't understand, where he or she should be going to the toilet, so let me make this a little more understanding for you. Lets say you have been using a training pad and that the puppy is really got it down to a fine art, then all of sudden you ran out, and put news paper down instead. Of course we know why we have put news paper down, but your puppy won't and decides to accidently go for a wee on the laminate flooring, you see this and pick up the puppy and start to stroke and pet saying words like 'never mind fido' he will only get confused again because this is the same reward you have given when he or she does their toilet in the garden for instance, you have what I call put your puppy into a failed situation, because you put down news paper then rewarded at the wrong time. The puppy will then go for a wee anywhere knowing that he or she will be rewarded the same for weeing in the right or wrong place. So only reward when outside or when your puppy does there toilet or on the pad.

Timing

 This goes hand in hand with rewarding, recongnising the signs and the tips I will give in this section will help to accelerate the process. Rewarding when your puppy is actually weeing or pooping in the right place will cement the toilet training area, you only have 3 seconds to give a reward so no good leaving it untill he or she has finished and walked away. Timing comes into play with recongnising the signs, which is when your dog in most cases starts to circle around and around. You will get to read your own dogs signs before they perform there toilet duty. As soon as you see the sign pick them up and place them on the grass in the garden and give the command, then reward once your puppy is going to the toilet. The following tips will help to convert from training pad or news paper to garden. Once your puppy wakes up, take them straight out into the garden and let them sniff, give your command and reward once they start to perform the toilet duty. All puppies will want to go to the toilet upon waking up. This is also true for after you have played with them and got them all excited, once you have finsished playing take them staright out and repeat as stated in last tip. Once you have fed your puppy, wait for around 15 mins for the food to be digested and take them out, if you find your puppy goes before the 15 mins then reduce the time. Repeat as before, command and reward. And if at all possilble take them out as many times as possilble in between during the day. 

Consistency

 If you are consistent every day with the toilet training of your puppy, this will speed up the process ten fold.

Recongnising the signs

I have already spoke about this in the section timing, learning to read when your dog is just about to perfom a toilet action, will help to stop accidents in the home and enforce where you woud like your puppy to be going for his or her's toilet. Every dog has their own signs, but most will perform circle actions or figure of eights. So the quicker you learn the signs from your dog, the better you will be able to speed up the process.

What the breeder used

 If the breeder had news paper down every where in the breeding box or run, the puppy wouldn't have been able to discriminate where to go to the toilet by the mother dog, of course this won't help us when we get a little puppy home. But lets say for argument sake the puppies were being trained on news paper, and where using the news paper correctly. It would make sense then to carry on using news paper, if then you decided to use a training pad, first of all use the news paper and then place a pad on the news paper. Once the puppy starts usuing the pad, we could remove the news paper and continue with the training pad.

Our interaction

 If we play lots with our puppy, then like I have already stated this can stimulate a want to go for the toilet. If we get frustrated or angry because you are not getting the results we want from our puppy, first call me where I will advise what to do, but more importantly lets not, because this will have an effect on the state of the mind of the puppy and can lead to weeing through fear or worse. Just remember that our influence and interaction will have different effects on our puppy and this can contribute towards house soiling.
 
So thats my list of things to help with house breaking your puppy, If you would like more advice or help with your puppy or dogs training then please contact me, where i would only be to glad to help.