How to Train Your Puppy to Pee Outside in 6 Easy Steps

Getting a new puppy brings a lot of potential problems and the biggest one is to train your puppy to pee outside. You need to understand that this is a process, it takes a while, and you can’t expect it to happen in a couple of days. Arm yourself with patience and follow these 6 easy steps.

1. Newspapers are Your Friends

Newspapers are the thing you absolutely have to have in your home when you get a new puppy. They will be of a huge help to train the puppy to pee outside.

Take a lot of newspapers and basically pad the floor of the room where your puppy is. Don’t put just one layer but rather 3-4. It is a good idea to remove the rugs from all the other rooms until your puppy becomes house trained. Your puppy will probably choose a certain place in the house where to pee. Of course, you don’t want this place to be in the house at all, and that’s where the newspapers come in.

Make sure to see where your puppy peed for the first time and take the last layer of those newspapers. Discard all the others. Now comes the second step.

2. Move the Newspapers Closer to the Door

Now that you have the last payer of the newspapers you puppy peed on, put it closer to the exit door of your house and cover it with clean newspapers. You can’t immediately put them by the door, especially if the door is too far away. You need to gradually move them closer.

What’s the catch you ask? Your puppy’s nose. Dogs can smell their own urine, you know they use it to mark their territory. Well, since your puppy is too small to actually be territorial, it will track the smell of its own urine to pee at the same place again. Even if those newspapers weren’t wet at all, dogs’ sense of smell is way better than ours.

With this method, you gradually move your puppy’s “toilet” closer to the exit door, and in one moment, you will make it out.

3. Monitor the Puppy

Purebred Canine Blue Nose American Bully Puppy in Whelping Box Razors Edge Breed
You can start doing this right from the start, but it can prove to bring more harm than good in the beginning. The point is to monitor your puppy closely to see when it prepares itself to pee. As soon as you see it lifting a leg, or crouching (puppies actually learn to lift a leg when they’re a little older) gently tap it on the butt, say “no” and take it out to do the business.

Now, you can see the flaw in this plan if you start too early. If your puppy is located far away from the exit door, you risk a couple of rooms and your own pants with doggy pee. But this can work quite fine once you get your puppy’s “toilet” closer to the door.

Extra advice: If you puppy succeeds to pee on the rug or anywhere else in the house, make sure you clean that right away. It’s best to use vinegar or lemon juice for cleaning, because they can efficiently mask the smell of the pee, so the doggy doesn’t come back to the same place.

4. Put a Bell on the Door

I actually learned this trick from a professional dog trainer. Buy a small bell in a store and hang it on the exit door. It needs to be lower, so that your puppy can reach it with its muzzle.

Whenever you take your puppy outside to pee, ring the bell. After a while, the puppy will start associating the ringing sound with going out. This means it will learn to ring the bell when it needs to go out.

5. Give an Encouraging Cheer

Dogs respond to praises, so if you want to train your puppy to pee outside, it is quite a good idea to award it with a praise every time it succeeds.

Take the puppy out and as soon as it is done with its business, say “good doggy” and pet it. The puppy needs to associate peeing outside as being good whereas peeing indoors means bad.

6. Don’t Give Your Puppy too Much Water

This of course doesn’t mean that you should leave the puppy thirsty, just don’t give it too much water. Puppies actually don’t have control over their sphincter, they can’t hold the pee in. This function develops when they grow up a little.

This is also a reason why you shouldn’t yell at your puppy when it does pee in the house, it’s just because it couldn’t hold it anymore. It doesn’t do it with the purpose to annoy you.

Training you puppy to pee outside comes down to two words – patience and persistence. It’s not rocket science, but you need to give it some time.

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About the author

Sarah

I’m a free spirit who likes to travel, cook and fly. Licensed paraglider pilot, I spend all my spare time flying. In the meantime, I like to share my recipes and travel experiences.

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  • lets hope your training tips help my lhapso apso dog teddy will let u no if it works xxx

    • I’m sorry your having trouble but the key to potty training your puppy is when you bring him home, take him to the area where you want him to go potty before you bring him in the house. wait for him to potty, then bring him in the house for the first time. Do NOT bring your puppy in the house and then bring him outside! He will never learn to potty outside. Try it, it really works!! I did this with all my dogs and none of them went potty inside the house. Now it might be too late if you already brought your puppy in the house before taking him outside so good luck with that!

  • i love this my doggy knew what to do in a few weeks thank you very much I love this website thank you xx

  • I was just wondering if anybody living in a rural area has ever tried to teach a puppy to pee outdoors by peeing outdoors themselves, whether you are male or female. I don’t imagine this approach would go over too well in a neighborhood, but for those of you that may have the needed acreage and privacy, has anyone tried it and had it work?

  • I took my puppy from a dog foster home about a year ago. I love him to bits; he has a great personality, and I feel that he loves our family so much. BUT, whenever I leave him at home he pees in the house: on the carpet, on the bed, on flowers..
    My husband and I were thinking about taking him to ‘doggy school’, but then again, it’s extremely expensive, and the nearest ‘doggy school’ is far away from us. Maybe you have some advice? THANK YOU!!!!