A Few Tips On House Training A Dog

House training a dog is not easy and I know this from painful experience. If your home has carpets then you’ll spend a lot of time on your hands and knees cleaning up after your little pooch! The first few weeks I had my pup I remember thinking what a mistake I had made. He just turned my whole world upside down. It just seemed like as soon as I had cleaned up after him he made a mess somewhere else in the house. Thankfully he is now toilet trained and rarely has an accidents in my house. There are a few secrets that I can share with you which will hopefully make house training your dog a little easier. I can give you some advice from my own experiences of bringing up a little monster!

Firstly, it’s not something that you can teach your dog over night. It takes a lot of patience and I’d say the best part of two weeks to get your pup fully trained. Some breeds are easier to train than others and unfortunately I had a terrier which is one of the trickiest to train. Add to that the fact that he was the most stubborn puppy I’ve ever met and you can see I had my hands full! You have to start off by using puppy pads. A lot of people use newspaper for this but I found that puppy pads were well worth the expense. Anything your puppy does on the newspaper tends to soak through to the floor whereas the puppy pads were much more absorbent and made things a little more hygienic and easier to clean. I started off by placing puppy pads where my dog tended to do the toilet so that his scent was in that area. Gradually he got the idea and I reduced the number of pads I placed around my house to just one area. He then got the picture that this is the area he has to go to when he’s ready for the toilet. Ideally, you want the pads to be near the door where your dog will exit to go outside to the toilet. The idea behind this is that when you eventually take away the last puppy pad, your dog will stand at the door letting you know he or she needs to go out.

Most breeders and trainers will recommend that you take away the puppy pads when your dog is four months old. By this point he or she is capable of holding the toilet for a couple of hours giving you the chance to go for walkies. Then the fun really begins. You have to try and take your dog out after extensive periods of play, any naps and before and after meal times. This is a lot of walking! I found myself taking him out every two hours which can be quite tiring at first. If you put the hard work in and have some patience it pays off and your dog will be toilet trained. Eventually, you can reduce the number of times you take your dog for a walk as he or she will let you know by standing at the door.  

If you’re having difficulty toilet training your pet then follow some of the tips above and most of all, have patience with your dog. It will learn eventually I promise!