House training your puppy

House training is the term we normally use for the process of training a puppy, to go outside to urinate or defecate (toilet) rather than toileting in the home. Once puppies have been house trained, they should remain clean in the house throughout their life. If your dog has been house trained and then starts to mess in the house again you should consult your veterinarian. A loss of toilet control can be caused by health problems and emotional disorders such as anxiety or fear.

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Puppies will learn to toilet in a specific location by themselves, but they need a little help to learn which location is convenient for us!

From about 3 weeks of age puppies try to walk away from the nest area to toilet. When they are about 5 weeks old, they start to learn to prefer particular sites or surfaces, such as grass, for toileting. This preference is developed through association which becomes stronger as the puppy gets older and is firmly established by about 8 weeks. If a puppy has not been exposed to grass in this time it may continue to prefer whatever surface has been available and it may need to be taught a different preference. This means that you have to provide a suitable location for your puppy to use as a toilet while preventing it from going to areas you don’t want it to use.

When a puppy toilets it experiences a sense of relief, which is a positive and rewarding experience. If this experience keeps occurring when the puppy is on a particular surface or in a particular location the puppy learns to associate the feeling with the site. As the puppy learns to control its need to toilet it will choose to wait until its preferred surface or location is available.

It is impossible to force a puppy not to toilet in a certain place – you must try to encourage it to go where you do want it to toilet. First you must anticipate when your puppy is likely to want to toilet (this is usually after waking, playing, and after meals), then make sure the puppy is in the location you want it to learn to use at that time. You should take your puppy to this location as soon as it shows signs that it needs to toilet, ie it stops one behavior before beginning another behavior. Through repetition your puppy will learn to associate the location you take it to with toileting.

When they are awake puppies need to toilet every 2 hours or so and usually they will show behavioral changes immediately beforehand. Young puppies do not have full sphincter control and are not always capable to completely empty the bladder with each void. For puppies under 4 months of age, they may toilet outside but just 15 minutes later need to toilet again because their bladder was not emptied completely. The signs to look out for are restlessness, sniffing the floor, moving in circles or moving towards a location where it has been before. Luckily there are circumstances in which you can reliably anticipate that they need to go out. These are:

• When they wake up
• After or during periods of activity or excitement
• Shortly after drinking
• Within 20 minutes of eating.

You can reduce the risk of unwanted learning developing by putting your puppy in an indoor kennel, puppy play pen or similar when you are out. Your puppy may be reluctant to toilet in this confined area, and you can put down a temporary surface here, such as fake grass.

Ideally you should not leave your puppy in the indoor kennel for longer than he can control his need to toilet. A general guide is your puppy’s age in months plus 1. So, a 2 month old puppy should not be expected to “hold it” more than 3 hours. The maximum length of time, regardless of age, is 8 hours. You should regard this facility as a way of managing the training and preventing unwanted or dangerous chewing when you can’t supervise. It is also important that your puppy has pleasant associations with this location. Your puppy should have a bed there and be quite happy to sleep in it. At night you should go to bed as late as possible and get up as early as possible so that your puppy has the best chance of learning to wait until you take it out. Once a routine has been established you can gradually make the period of time your puppy is left overnight longer.

If you catch your puppy in the act of toileting in an inappropriate place, try to interrupt the behavior by, eg cueing outside in an upbeat tone. It is sometimes best to just let the puppy complete the void, reassess management, and set the puppy up to be successful in the future.

As puppies and dogs do not have a sense of right and wrong you should never punish a puppy for inappropriate toileting. Often owners are confused by what they interpret as signs of guilt in their puppy if it has toileted. In fact, the puppy is not feeling guilty it is anticipating the owner becoming threatening. A major reason for avoiding any form of punishment in this circumstance is that it causes stress. Feelings of stress may reduce the puppy’s toilet control resulting in more toileting where you don’t want it and house training will take longer. Plus, the punishment can teach the puppy it is unsafe to eliminate in front of people, making it more difficult to reinforce elimination in desired locations.

Rewarding your puppy for toileting where you want it to can only be a good thing. Some calm praise and even a small piece of a treat or a bit of the pup’s food, after the puppy completes the void can help your puppy learn where you prefer it to eliminate. The sense of relief associated with toileting is rewarding in its own right and if your puppy is toileting in an appropriate place that will encourage future toileting there.

What if my puppy has already messed in the house?

Firstly, blame yourself and promise that you will try and do better in your supervision, anticipation and timing!! Secondly, clean the area using an enzymatic cleaner made especially for the purpose. This will reduce the smell that may make it more likely that your puppy will go back to the same location. Avoid deodorizing agents that reduce your ability to smell the odor rather than remove it as these contain ammonia. As ammonia is a component of urine its use may encourage your puppy to go to that location to toilet.