Puppy Training: How Do I Train My Puppy?
About 90% of American pet puppies live indoors with their owners. If you are thinking of having your dog live inside with you and your family, you have to go through the process of housebreaking them. Many pet owners are daunted by the responsibility of potty training a puppy. It’s not that bad and it’s not too messy; and do not need to battle with your dog in order to housebreak him. You have to keep in mind though that this is a training issue and you have to put in a little more than just casual effort. It requires time, involvement, and some tools of the trade such as puppy training pads.
The Puppy Rules
Two guiding rules exist for helping puppies and dog owners in puppy training. Remember to never punish your puppy for something you didn’t see him do. And second, praise your puppy for the things he did do right. Don’t let training lead to situations where your only action is saying ‘no’ when you catch your pet doing something wrong. Praise them or offer them a reward when they do the right thing.
House Training/Breaking Puppies
There are many different techniques to house train your pup. When starting indoors, encourage your pup to use puppy training pads or papers to go to the bathroom on. Puppy pads generally are treated with scented chemicals that lure pups and get them to use the pads. The moment you observe them beginning the pre-elimination routine of pacing and sniffing at the floor, lift up the puppy and quietly relocate them to the paper or puppy training pads, and then offer them a reward for appropriately going to the bathroom.
When everything is going well and the doggies are using the papers and puppy training pads consistently, you can either move those closer to the door or place them outside. The change is made from concentrating on bathroom habits at a location inside the house to a location outside the house. Soon, you’ll have no use for training papers and pads inside the house.
The drawback of this approach to housebreaking is that more time is required to get the pup to do his business inside. Some other popular techniques used for house training your puppy are puppy crate training or using cages which require constant looking after by the owner.
When you opt to use a crate or a cage for housebreaking your dog, take note that dogs can only hold their bladders and bowels for about seven to eight hours. Usually this technique is very effective because most puppies consider their cage or crate as their sleeping area and they don’t want to have to lie in their own mess. However it is not recommended to leave them in a cage or crate longer than necessary.
Constant supervision on the other hand, does not involve the use of training paper or puppy pads, and crates or cages. In this case, the owners elect to be with their puppies for as much time as necessary. This works good for those who are retired, work from home, or any owner that can spend lots of time with the puppy. With this method, pet owners usually hustle their puppy outside as soon as they notice the pre-potty signs. Puppies should be watched at all times to ensure that no accidents or slip-ups occur.
To sum up, puppy housebreaking and training should be treated as part of the ‘come’ and ‘stay’ command trainings. However, housebreaking and potty training a puppy are always the messiest lessons, and will usually give you more problems than any other form of dog training. Have faith!
Puppy Training – SIRIUS Berkeley Puppy 1 (4.1)