In an earlier post, we talked about a couple of common house training approaches for puppies. In this post, let's focus a little more on paper training, and scheduling. Paper training is a well known approach as well, but this approach may take a little longer when compared to crate training. You can combine the two approaches to house train your puppy to eventually follow schedules. This will help make everyone's life easier.
There are 2 types of house training - outdoors and indoors. What is important here is to learn not to mix the 2 types of training together. If you live in an apartment, and you want to house train your puppy to eliminate indoors, then just stick to paper training for indoors. Make sure that your puppy develops the habit. If you mix the 2 methods, your puppy may be confused easily.
Paper training for the indoors.
Pick a room in your home and lay the entire floor area with paper. Don't let your puppy roam around the entire house. Too much freedom is a common mistake made by many inexperienced dog owners. The puppy will start eliminating all over the house, and you will have a hard time cleaning after it.
Keep the puppy confined in the room and observe its behavior. At first, the puppy may eliminate in all 4 corners of the room. That is perfectly normal. Give it some time. After a while, the puppy will start to choose a favorite corner to eliminate. This is because by nature, dogs like to keep their play and sleep area clean. When you see that happening, reduce the amount of paper on the floor.
Notice that all this time, your puppy is eliminating on paper. Over time, the puppy will associate eliminating with paper. As you reduce the paper on the floor, you are also narrowing down the eliminating area. When you are confident that the dog has successfully cultivated the habit of eliminating on paper, try moving the paper elsewhere. Use an odor neutralizer to get rid of the scent. Otherwise the puppy may recognize the scent and go back to the same area to eliminate.
Also, when you move the paper, don't move it too far away from the original spot. Try inches at a time. You are more likely to succeed this way.
Training for the outdoors.
Training your puppy to eliminate outdoors will save you a lot of time (you don't have to clean up after your puppy). There is no need to use paper (huge savings here!). Bring your puppy out on a leash and let it wander around. It will start to pick some spots that it feels comfortable eliminating. You can also bring the puppy to a spot that you have chosen and let it sniff around the area.
When you see the puppy starting to eliminate, use some verbal cues to encourage the dog. You can use something like "pee quick" or just "pee pee". Show lots of praises on him to let him know that he has done something right.
House training the puppy to eliminate on schedule.
Now that your puppy knows where to eliminate, you can train it to learn when to eliminate. Remember that this doesn't happen overnight. There are no short cuts. You have to give time to the puppy to develop good habits. But you have to start somewhere right?
Let's take a look at a couple of possible schedules.
If you are working, you need to focus on the time that you are at home - like in the morning or during the evening after you come home. While you are away at work, get some help to make sure that your puppy don't stay alone for too long. You can get help from friends, family members, or even neighbors.
Sample schedule:
7 a.m - You have just awaken. Take the puppy out from the crate or sleeping area and bring it to the potty area. Do the potty drill and bring the puppy back in again.
7.15 a.m - Bring the puppy back in and give some water to the puppy.
7.45 a.m - Bring the puppy out to potty area again. But this time, after business, instead of bringing him back in, spend some play time with the puppy (probably till about 8.30 a.m)
8.30 a.m - Bring puppy back in for a nap and go to work.
This is a sample schedule if you are working. If you are not working, you can make a schedule for the whole day. It'll be rather similar to the above schedule. Just remember to include the following activities in your schedule:
1) Time for naps.
2) Time for water.
3) Time for eliminating.
4) Time for structured play.
If the puppy misbehaves or if accidents happen, don't lose heart and more importantly, don't get upset. Just stick to the schedule as much as you on a daily basis. Over time, you will find that your puppy's behavior will improve, and life will get to be a lot more easy and joyful for both puppy and owner.
