The Importance of Proper Housetraining

Housetraining your dog takes time, patience, and dedication, and it can be a challenging task if handled improperly.

A dog doesn’t know that it’s inappropriate to eliminate indoors unless his owner tells him so. Eliminating, like chewing, digging, and other things dogs do that can be problematic for their owners, are all natural dog behaviors. And from your dog’s perspective, it’s much more pleasant to eliminate on a soft carpet in your climate-controlled home than outside on grass and in rough weather.

This doesn’t mean that you have to allow these undesirable natural behaviors in your home, but it’s up to you to set your expectations and make sure that your dog knows what they are. Any dog can be housetrained, as long as his owner is willing to make the effort to communicate with him in ways he can understand and as long as his owner gives him clear, consistent direction so that he knows what is expected of him.

How you choose to housetrain your dog—whether to use a crate, for example, or whether you teach him to go outdoors to eliminate or to use a litter box or other indoor housetraining method—is up to you, but any successful housetraining program requires the following elements:

Besides the obvious benefit of preventing you from having to clean up after your dog in your home, proper housetraining makes a dog much more likely to live a happy life with his family. A housetraining problem is one of the leading reasons why people give up their dogs in the United States. Many people are more likely to put up with a dog who bites than with one who consistently eliminates inside.