Potty Training Puppies or Older Dogs is Crucial
It is crucial to the future of any dog that you get them housetrained. Many times, owners who don’t succeed with potty training give up their dogs to shelters. This is very stressful for the dog, and all too often means they will not live much longer.
The reason the methods are different is that with a young puppy it is a matter of their bodies maturing and of their understanding what you want. Taking them to their potty area every time they wake up is the single most important thing you can do.
But with older puppies and dogs, they have learned some habits that you need to get them to unlearn. Their bodies are almost always capable of holding it, but somehow they haven’t gotten the idea of where to go. You won’t need to get up in the middle of the night as you may have done with a young puppy, but you will need to be extremely vigilant. Crating the dog may work when you are not home, and tying the dog to your slacks with a long lead is a good way to make sure it doesn’t wander into the living room and use the carpet while you are concentrated on your computer in another room!
Here is an audio file about housetraining dogs that I made:
and another where I answer some questions about it:
When you get home, don’t let him loose unattended in the living room. This is one of the crucial times, since you know he may go. If I were in your shoes, I would keep the leash in my pocket, have some really yummy treats, and watch him — I mean, stay in the same room and watch him, not the TV, not a quick phone call — and when you see those pre-poop signs, like beginning to sniff around the floor, I would rush him outside. Might have to do this several times before he actually pooped where you want him to. but when he does, praise him and give him lots of treats.
And expect to have to do this a bunch of times!
When you don’t have time to do this, like if you have to go to work, crate him after the walk and then have someone take him outside again as soon as you can.
Good luck!
I adopted a 9 month old Pit Bull he is fantastic, he is finall pee trained, but I cant break the habit of the
poohing in the living room I know he needs to go and I do take him to parks and long walks but as soon as we go home he poohs in the living room. what am I doing wrong????
Cold climates can be a problem. I remember housetraining our Basenji puppy in Olympia, WA, during a time of massive rainstorms. So9mehow we got through it!
This puppy is lucky to have made her way to your home!
We are fostering a 8 month yorkshire mix, she was found in a tied garbage bag. She is very affectionate, but the last couple of days have been a bit demanding on the puppy training. To compound this we are in a very cold climate…I will keep on trying while we find a good home for her.
I have just deleted two comments that were from people promoting the same dog training website. Lot of spammers out there!
This is exactly the reason I am working on my book. In a nutshell, keep the dog with you every possible minute of the day that you are home! by with you, I mean TIED TO YOU with a leash or a sash. Old habits can be very hard to break, but you can eventually do it most likely. In the meantime, set up management habits for yourself and for your husband. Good luck!
I am beside myself, I rescued a toy poodle that I’ve come to love but my husband is sick and tired of the fact that I can’t seem to house train her. The dog is about 3-4 years old, doesn’t seem to have any regular time to go, and used to be a breeder dog that was not trained at all. She is very loving and I’d hate to give her up. However, it’s been over 3 months and I can’t seem to make any headway.
Thanks for your comments! Cosnsitency really pays off in training!
I tried potty training 2 ways. The first did not work as well. The second time I started with making a time for eating, breakfast lunch and dinner. If you can only do it twice, once at breakfast and then dinner that seems to work better. Rather than letting a dog eat whenever they want this way regulates their bowels. It takes a few days but you soon will learn when your puppy needs to go and the times of the day he does whichever. By your puppy knowing his schedule and you knowing his schedule it seems to make this work quite well. I have a chi and supposedly they are the hardest to train. Because she is small I still have to take her out at least every 5 hours, she has not had an accident in the house in over 6 months. She is now a year old. I take her to one spot to do one type of elimination and to a second spot to do the other. I can tell by where she heads what the game plan is. In the beginning I would wait no more than 10 minutes and then we would go back in the house. I crated her when she was not eating or playing. I rewarded her intitially with treats, then words of praise, every time she did a good “deed”. She no longer expects either now but I still give her praise because it’s such a good thing. If you make it a routine, going to the same door to go out, going to the same spots, they eventually will go to the door when they have to go and to the associated spot. She makes no haste now for the task at hand. :-)
Rosana’s method of taking the puppies to their special place has worked fantastically on my two Doberman puppies! Within a week, they would cry to be let out to get to the “toilet” on time and even responded positively to being asked to go before being caged at bedtime.
A new development this week however, we have a new enclosure for them with plenty of room to run around so they are secured in there overnight. The last two mornings, I have come down to find that they have used their kiddies pool for peeing in (currently only having water in at bath time). Not sure how they decided this was a good idea, but it makes life very easy as it’s effortless to wash out the pool rather than have the concrete/tiles soiled.
Thanks Rosana!
Great post, I learned a lot! (too nbad I don’t have a website to link to) ;-)
Now, seriously… I think it’s agreat idea – especially the book about how to teach older dogs. While reading about potty training I mostly find advice for puppy owners. That’s good of course, but I’m just about to adopt an adult shelter dog so I need something about older dogs, in case my new friend has not been trained yet. I think I will try to cicker-train my dog to pee and poop on demand (following Ian Dunbar’s protocol), I hope this will work.