{the dog blog of Outside magazine}
Housebreaking, the Basics
by Grayson Schaffer | on May 4th, 2009 | in Features, Training
by Grayson Schaffer | on May 4th, 2009 | in Features, Training
A little privacy, please?
We’ve mentioned it in passing elsewhere, but housebreaking is really a lot easier than most people make it out to be. Dogs are naturally clean animals; they won’t drop a deuce in their den unless you force them to. All you need to do expand the dog’s view of the den to include all indoor surfaces.
- Put your pup on a schedule. Control what goes in and you control when it comes back out again.
- Until the pup is about two months old, this means three feedings and waterings per day at regular times.
- When the pup is not being fed or trained, he should either be in his puppy pen (outside if temperature allows) or in his crate. Outside, it’s fine to pee; in his crate, he won’t.
- If your puppy does soil his crate, he’s doing it for one of two reasons: 1) The crate is too big and the pup thinks there’s enough room to turn one end into a bathroom, or 2) you’ve left the pup in the crate for too long. Most experts recommend no more than an hour of crate time unsupervised, but every dog is different. Main thing: Don’t leave your puppy alone in his crate for longer than you know he can hold it.
- When you take the puppy out of the crate for feeding time, don’t put him down on the floor before putting him outside. It’s a near certainty that he’ll pee first thing.
- Right when your dog is about to eliminate, give your elimination command, Get it done. This is capturing the behavior, adding a cue to something the dog is doing anyway. Eventually, you’ll be able to tell the dog to go to the bathroom on command. Praise and reward lavishly.
- You can see from this that housebreaking, crate training, and confinement are really all part of the same exercise. The goal is that by ingraining a routine at this age, you won’t have to worry about it later.
In the Event of a Water Landing. . .
If your dog does pee on the floor or take a dump in the closet, don’t get mad or rub the dog’s nose in it. The mistake is yours alone. What was the puppy doing unsupervised? Why did he have a full bladder? Just work on setting your dog up to succeed.