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Housetraining Basics
A successful housetraining regimen is rooted in an understanding of your dog: what he will respond to best while training and what you can expect from him based on his age, breed, and even his past training experiences. Proper housetraining also requires certain equipment, which you should prepare before you begin the training process.
Understand Reward-Based Training
Reward-based training is the best way to encourage desired behaviors in your dog—whether you are housetraining him or teaching him basic commands or complex tricks. Whenever your dog does something you want him to do, even if the behavior happened by accident, reward him with praise, a treat, or even playtime. If he does something you don’t want him to do, don’t punish him. Making a scene over bad behavior (such as scolding him for an accident in the home) is reinforcement for your dog. He won’t be able to tell the difference between how you react to his good behaviors and how you react to his bad behaviors.
Reward-based training works not only with dogs who are especially easy to train but also with all different breeds and with all different types of dog personalities. The only difference in response will be the type of reward a dog responds to best. Get to know your dog and his individual motivators and use the ones that work best when training.
Why Punishment Doesn’t Work
Physically punishing your dog is never the answer to a housetraining problem—or any other problem. You may get a message across to your dog, but you’re likely to create new issues rather than solve the original one.
For example, say your dog eliminates on the rug and you catch him in the act, then yell at him, scold him, or punish him physically. The dog will understand that you are upset with him, but he won’t understand why. He’s most likely to assume that you got angry with him for eliminating rather than for where he chose to do it. At this point, he will probably continue to eliminate in the house but hide while he does it so that you don’t catch him and scare him again.
In some cases, the problem can become even worse: your dog may become aggressive in response to punishment. When you use aggressive tactics with your dog, it teaches him that that’s how to solve a problem and makes him more likely to be aggressive himself.
Know Your Dog
Every dog is different, and there are many factors that will determine how long your dog should be able to go without needing a potty break—and how well he’ll take to housetraining. The better you understand your dog, the better you’ll be able to train him.
Age
Age plays an important factor in how long your dog can wait in between potty breaks and whether he’s able to understand what you’re trying to teach him. Though any dog can become properly housetrained through the right methods, it’s best if a puppy learns from an early age where he should and shouldn’t eliminate. The following are the stages of a puppy’s development and how they relate to the housetraining process.
- 5–7 weeks: This is a very important time in a puppy’s development. He learns many social skills from his littermates that help him deal with humans and other dogs later in life. Though you shouldn’t be able to acquire a puppy this young from a breeder or other source, the housetraining process begins at this stage. If a puppy is properly housed during this crucial period, he should learn the beginning concepts of housetraining—most notably, not to eliminate where he eats or sleeps.
- 8–16 weeks: What a puppy experiences during this short window plays a large part in determining how he views the world. If housetraining is inconsistent or made scary to him now, housetraining problems are likely to occur in the future. Sometimes during this period, puppies appear to be completely housetrained. Some puppies even go toward the door or offer another signal when they have to eliminate. However, puppies are inconsistent at this stage because they are still so young and just learning bladder control, and having unrealistic expectations of your puppy at this early stage can make his housetraining habits inconsistent as an adult. At eight weeks of age, puppies can usually wait about two hours before they need a potty break. By 16 weeks, they can hold it for four hours or so.
- 4–6 months: At this age, a puppy is exploring the world around him and is easily distracted. This is normal and may result in what appears to be a lapse in housetraining, but at such a young age, the puppy wasn’t really housetrained to begin with. Puppies at about four months of age can go for 4–5 hours without a potty break. By about six months of age, they can go 6–7 hours without a break.
- 6–12 months: This is the period when many owners make the mistake of thinking that their puppies are fully housetrained, so they allow their dogs the run of the house unsupervised, only to return home and find accidents. Puppies may not consider your entire house as their den (and therefore an inappropriate place to eliminate) until they’re a year old or more. It all depends on the individual puppy and how well he’s been trained. If your puppy has had a good, consistent housetraining program up to this time, he should be able to go about 7–8 hours between potty breaks.
Breed
In general, it’s more difficult to housetrain a toy breed than a larger dog. This is because of the toy breed’s tiny digestive system, which processes food more quickly and causes these dogs to have to eliminate more often. Also, toy breeds have accidents quickly, so it’s difficult to catch one as it’s happening. Several days could go by before you even notice an accident in your home.
Because toys are so small, many owners don’t consider toys’ housetraining accidents a big problem, whereas a Great Dane owner would likely take quick action because her dog makes a much bigger mess. This depends on the individual owner, however: if you set low expectations for your dog’s housetraining, you can’t expect him to be perfectly trained. It may take a little longer to housetrain a toy breed, but it’s entirely possible to do so with patience, consistency, and positivity.
Gender
Male dogs can be harder to housetrain than female dogs. When males become sexually mature (usually at around 6–12 months of age), they may start lifting their legs and urinating to mark territory in the house. The habit begins due to the influence of a male’s hormones, and the more often he does it, the more of a habit it becomes.
Neutering your dog at the earliest age your veterinarian recommends will often prevent this problem from ever starting in the first place, but if it has already begun, it
becomes harder to fix the longer you allow it to continue. If you neuter your dog later in life, after he’s been marking indoor territory for years, he won’t automatically stop doing it as a result of being fixed.
Even if marking has been a problem for a while, you can still housetrain your dog. It’s just likely to take a bit longer and will require more patience and persistence on your part.
Past Training
In some cases, you may experience a housetraining problem with your dog because of something that happened to him before you got him. If a breeder didn’t house the puppy correctly, for example, and he had no choice but to eliminate in his sleeping area and live in his own waste, he will have learned that it’s acceptable to do so. It is your job to teach him to unlearn this behavior.
You also need to maintain consistency in the way you housetrain your dog. If you try paper training for two weeks, then buy a crate, then get rid of the crate and go back to the paper, you’ll confuse your dog, and he is not likely to ever become fully housetrained. Dogs are very much creatures of routine. They like their worlds to be predictable, which can actually help you housetrain your dog if you develop a plan and follow it consistently.
Get the Right Gear
In order for your housetraining regimen to be successful, you’ll need some basic equipment. Having the right tools on hand can make the job of training your dog much easier.
Crate
Proper confinement is crucial to the housetraining process. You need to limit your dog’s space because most animals don’t want to eliminate in their dens. As they learn bladder and bowel control, you can increase their amount of freedom so that they gradually understand that your entire house is off-limits for elimination.
A crate is one of the best ways to safely and effectively confine your dog. It prevents him from chewing or eating items in the home that can harm him, and it keeps him out from underfoot when you’re busy or otherwise unable to keep an eye on him.
Baby Gates
You can purchase baby gates at pet supply stores. Some gates are permanent (they include hardware for installing them into a door frame), while others are easily moved from door to door. These gates serve to limit your dog’s space in your home to an area of your choosing and can either be your principal method of confinement or work in conjunction with a crate, preventing your dog from entering certain rooms when he’s roaming the house.
Purchase sturdy, reliable gates of an appropriate size for the dog you own. If a gate is too small, your dog will be able to jump over it.
Leash
When you start your housetraining program and take your dog outside to eliminate, you must have some degree of control over his movement. Of course, a dog should never be loose in an unfenced area, but even in a fenced yard, you should have your dog on a leash while housetraining. This will prevent him from becoming distracted when you take him out to eliminate.
Use a 4–6 foot (1.2–2 m) leash in whatever material feels comfortable to you. Leashes are most commonly available in nylon, cotton, or leather.
Collar
There are collars in a variety of materials and styles on the market. The best type of collar to use is one with a simple, flat buckle. Don’t use a choke chain or prong collar. These collars use the principle of physical punishment to train, rather than the positive methods that will encourage your dog to succeed.
| Text & Photos Copyright © 2007 TFH Publications, Inc. | Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
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