7 Simple Steps to Housetrain Your Puppy
Toilet training your puppy can feel like a huge challenge in the early days but if you follow these seven simple steps, you’ll have your puppy toileting in the garden quickly and without stress.
House training is one of the first things you’ll need to teach your puppy when you bring them home. Yes, it’s not the most fun thing to work on and you might be tempted to focus on training cute tricks instead. But, believe me, no-one has ever been distraught and considered re-homing their puppy because they can’t do a ‘hi-five’ whereas lots of people have felt that way about a dog that still wees and poos in the house when they’re 8 months old! Nobody wants to spend their days cleaning up dog mess. So let’s do this….
Choose a toileting area. This should be somewhere that your puppy feels safe to go to the toilet. Ideally, you should choose somewhere enclosed so that they can go off the lead or at least be allowed to mooch around on a lead that's not too short. Avoid using puppy pads unless you absolutely need your puppy to toilet indoors in a chosen location (because you have no easy access to outdoor space, for example), in which case, choose one place to have a pad on a tray. Bear in mind that many young pups won't 'go' when out on walks until they're a bit more confident so they hold on and then want to go as soon as they get home!
Provide your puppy with regular opportunities to toilet in your preferred place. This will mean taking them there after every sleep/ feed/ play/ walk etc. and at least every hour in between (yes, that often!).
Avoid keeping your puppy contained (eg. in a crate) for longer than they can hold on - they will be forced to soil in there and, not only is this not helpful for house training, it is also distressing for the puppy. You will wither need to get up to let them out in the night while they are too young to hold their bladder for that long or provide them with access to a place to toilet (with a puppy pad) overnight.
At all times, supervise your puppy closely so that they have minimal opportunities to 'get it wrong' and toilet in places where you don't want them to.
Reward your puppy for toileting in your desired location.
Clean up accidents with enzymatic cleaner to remove any scent, which could encourage them to go in the same place again.
Avoid punishing your puppy for toileting in places where you don't want them to. Even if it only happened a moment ago and you show them it, your puppy will not make the link and will simply learn that you are scary/unpredictable. Instead, if you 'catch them in the act', pick them up and take them to the correct place. If you punish your puppy, this can backfire due to the pup learning that it's not safe to toilet in your presence but is safe to do so when you're not there or not looking…. Meaning that you might end up with a dog that just waits until your back is turned before pooing behind the sofa (not nice!).
Whilst this process is very simple, it will still take a bit of time. For a start, your puppy will not have full control of their bladder and bowels to begin… and there’s not much you can do to speed up biological development! Secondly, your puppy does not come with any innate understanding of where you would like them to go to the toilet – yes, it’s your job to teach them! Pups will generally avoid their sleeping area (unless they cannot escape it eg. a closed crate) but, other than that, they will feel it is perfectly ok to toilet anywhere when they feel the need to go. This is totally normal and to be expected. So, just like with potty training children, accept that this is a phase that will take a bit of work on your part (but the process is A LOT quicker with puppies than it is with children, thank goodness!).
My best advice is to really focus on this in the first few weeks of bringing your puppy home. It will feel like a bit of a pain at the time but, in my experience, the more ‘on it’ you are with house training in the early days, the quicker the puppy learns what you want and you don’t have to think about it anymore. Whereas, taking a more laissez-faire attitude tends to make the whole process drag on for much longer (and sometimes never be resolved) – don’t make the mistake of assuming that your dog will suddenly wake up one day thinking that it would be much better to go to the toilet outside in the cold, wet garden than on your lovely rug under the dining table in your cosy house… you’ll probably regret it!
You can download my free printable PDF guide to house training your puppy here:
Lovely to meet you!
I have seen the power of a truly proactive and personalised approach to puppy raising and training and want to share this with the people that need me most: new puppy owners and those planning to bring a puppy into their family. I’d love for you to be one of them.