Housebreaking: Methods To Use For The New Puppy

When I announced we added a new addition to our family, the parents were hoping for a grandchild; not a new puppy. Although they fell in love with our female Boxer, the tear in their eye hung there waiting for more news. Little did we all find out within a few months as new dog owners, the amount of time it takes to train a new puppy, labor might have been a quicker option.

Many new dog owners may not realize the time and effort it takes when becoming parents to a new puppy. On going training and corrections need to be consistent and every member of the home must follow the same training pattern. When a puppy is brought into its new home, many are no more than eight weeks old, just weaned from their mother and litter mates, and barely trained. Consider the pup like a baby; time and patience from the owner and of course a little crying may occur from frustration, but that is totally normal!

When we were housebreaking our puppy, I was the main trainer and home with her throughout the day. By four months old, Marley was already telling me when she needed to go out and stopped having accidents in her crate. We had a very advanced pup; or so we thought! Little did we know how intelligent dogs could really be till that one weekend!

Since my husband and I decided to split the responsibility of training, on the weekends, Marley would be taken out and put in the crate by him. One morning he had to work so I obviously had to continue the housebreaking routine. When he came home I shared what a good girl Marley was, no accidents! We decided to go out for lunch and my husband put Marley back into her crate. When we arrived back home two hours later, the entire crate was soiled! The look on my husband’s face was so sad; I thought he was going to cry. He said, “Why does she go to the bathroom in her crate when I put her in and not when you do it?”

The answer was simple. I would see the way he allowed Marley to do whatever she wanted and by Mondays, any training I did was ruined. Making sure all family members follow the training routine is a must! Assuming a puppy will listen to an owner just because they are a person is wrong. The puppy must know you are their leader and not just their play thing. Men are little slow sometimes but after this incident, my husband began to follow the training schedule and by the following weekend, Marley stopped going to the bathroom in her crate.
One method, which we practiced with our new puppy, is called crate training. This means the puppy stays in the crate when the owner is either not home, not playing with it, or when the owner cannot give the puppy their full attention. Giving a puppy free roam of the house is not a good idea and does not teach boundaries.

A few techniques we used while crate training to help Marley understand where to go to the bathroom are listed below.

•When it is time to take the puppy out to the bathroom, do not allow it to walk out of the crate.

•The owner should pick it up from the crate, click on their leash, and not place them down till they are outside.

•This teaches the puppy the place to do their business is only outside.

•Using the same technique, if the puppy has accidents in their crate, some owners will take a paper towel which was used to clean the crate, and place it outside so the puppy smells its own pee and relates going to the bathroom outside.

Remember, puppies need to be taught what correct behavior is and the only way this can be done is through their owners. Housebreaking does take a few months and eventually the puppy will learn to tell you when it needs to go out but for the first few months, the owner needs to be patient with their corrections. The more a pup learns at a young age, the easier it is to continue training as an adult. Any time Marley went to the bathroom outside, in a friendly high pitch voice, we told her she was a “good girl,” pet her head, many times gave her a hug and kiss (yes our neighbors already know we are little insane), and sometimes reinforced her correct behavior with a small treat.