Puppy Training: How to Potty Train a Puppy

When you get your new puppy home, one of the first things you will want it to learn is not to wee and poo all over your beige carpets! If you purchased your puppy from a reputable breeder, the chances are half of the work has already been done for you.

Good breeders usually breed puppies in their homes, which means the puppies often pick up good toilet manners from their parents, who are usually pets themselves and know where it is appropriate to go. We have had our puppy for two weeks now and were lucky enough to find that she already recognized that wherever the newspaper was laid out was the place to empty her bladder and bowels.

However, when bringing a new puppy home, you are bound to expect a few accidents until it becomes familiar with the new environment. Or perhaps your puppy has not been potty trained at all, and you will need to start from scratch. Here’s how to potty train a puppy:

Different Potty Training Methods

There are a few different methods you can use to potty train your new pup. The method you choose may depend on your breed of dog, your personal circumstances, and where you live. I know dog owners with small apartment dogs, who have trained their dogs to use puppy pads to go to the toilet in their own bathrooms when indoors. This is sometimes because certain small breeds, such as Chihuahuas, are reluctant to go out when the weather is cold, wet and miserable, and other times it is because the owner is not able to take the dog out two or three times a day due to disabilities or being away from home during the day.

Puppy pads are also useful for when you want to leave your dog with friends for the weekend because it means they don’t necessarily have to keep to your usual walking schedule, and the dog is less likely to ruin their beige carpets!

An alternative potty training method for young pups is the crate training method. This involves keeping your puppy contained in a small crate and letting it out at regular intervals for supervised play, feeding and regular toilet breaks.

This is a regime that needs a rigid and consistent structure in order to work effectively though, which will require you to pay constant attention to the activity of your new puppy. This is because the method relies heavily on the puppy never making a mistake, and only going to the toilet in the area you have decided upon. Sometimes this isn’t convenient when you have children to look after or a job to go to.

The potty training method I am going to describe here is a combination of all of the above. I believe it to be the most successful because it relies on the puppy working things out for itself. When a puppy uses its own brain to do the right thing, and achieves this by itself, it will learn much faster, and be more likely to be consistent.

A Step-by-Step Method to Potty Train Your New Puppy

1. Decide on a space in your home where you can easily contain your new puppy that has easily washable floors. The space must be fairly small, but have enough space for the puppy’s bed and extra space to move around and play. A good place is the kitchen or bathroom, which has tiled floors, and where you can erect a baby gate to stop the puppy from roaming out of the area. You can also use a puppy pen to contain a puppy to a certain area of your house.
2. You should then cover the whole floor of this contained area with a few layers of newspaper, or puppy pads if you are using them. Puppy pads are more expensive, but much better as they have a waterproof base and soak up the urine, locking the moisture away in a similar fashion to a baby’s nappy. They often work to combat bad odor too. You can purchase puppy pads much cheaper online.
3. Put the puppy’s bed in one corner and make sure there is plenty of floor space for the puppy to play. A puppy will instinctively be reluctant to go to the toilet in his own “den;” this is something the puppies normally pick up from their mother from birth. So it is important to allow space for the puppy to come out and away from the area it sleeps to go to the toilet.
4. When your puppy first goes to the toilet, note where it has gone. Instead of cleaning it up, you should leave a piece of the soiled paper or puppy pad there so that your pup can follow its own scent back to the same place to go to the toilet the next time. Gradually, you can start taking up paper or puppy pads in the room from the far end where the puppy sleeps, moving closer to where the puppy is going to the toilet, so that you reduce the amount of space the puppy will have to go to the toilet. It should keep going back to the same corner anyway, and will soon begin to associate the puppy pad or paper with its toilet. It can be a good idea to keep your puppy’s food and water bowls near the toilet area so that it is nearby when it feels the urge to go after drinking or eating.
5. Soon you will be left with one puppy pad or a sheet of newspaper on the floor, and the puppy will go to this sheet to do its business. When you are certain your puppy is being consistent in the contained area, you can start to remove the gate or leave the door open, and keep a close eye on your puppy while it explores the rest of your house. When it needs to go to the toilet it should instinctively want to sniff out the familiar toilet area. Your job is to ensure that the puppy is not given the chance to make any mistakes in the rest of your home. Signs to look out for are when your puppy start clawing at its behind, sniffing the floor, or moving around in small circles. If you see your puppy doing this, place it back into its contained area so that it remembers where its toilet is, and section the area off until it has done its business. Very soon, it will be able to find its own way back there. If you are holding your puppy on your lap and suddenly it seems to become restless or seem frustrated, it probably needs to go to the toilet.
6. Once you are confident to leave your puppy roaming around knowing it will not have any accidents and knows where to go to the toilet, you can start to move the puppy pad towards your back door if you have one. Gradually start placing it outside and taking your puppy out into the garden at regular intervals to encourage it to learn to go to the toilet outside. Before long, you may even be able to stop using puppy pads altogether, and you will know when your puppy needs to go to the toilet because it will sit at the back door and whine!

TIP: Potty training can take a long time depending on your dog breed. Some dogs are more stubborn than others, and some dogs just take longer to learn. The key is to be attentive, patient and consistent, and always reward your puppy with gentle praise when it does something you want.

Why You Shouldn’t Scold Your Puppy if it Makes a Toilet Mistake

If your puppy does make a mistake, do not scold it, and do not rub the puppy’s nose in the urine or smack it’s bottom. Often your puppy will not associate the negative punishment with what it has done wrong, and you may only end up confusing it or teaching your puppy the wrong thing – like not to go to the toilet in front of you because it thinks you don’t like it. This could lead to your pup sneaking off to some hidden place to do its business without you knowing, which will be a nasty surprise!

The best thing to do is to ignore it, not make a fuss, or bring the puppy’s attention to the wrong act – just clean it up quickly and quietly. Then keep your eye on your puppy the next time you suspect it needs to go! The next time it goes to the toilet in the right place, with or without your encouragement, lavish it with praise. It will soon figure out that you like it when it goes to the toilet on the puppy pad, and that it gets no great reaction from you when it goes elsewhere in the house.

Positive reinforcement is always much more effective than negative punishment, especially on young puppies who aren’t always aware of what they are doing wrong. Severe scolding can lead to damaged trust or an insecure dog. Make your dog feel good about itself, and it will want to repeat that behavior!

Brand new puppies are great fun, and we want to hear about your puppy’s training antics! Do you have any interesting training tips? Share them with us in the comments section below.