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. But it’s really not that hard to accomplish, it doesn’t need to be messy, and you don’t have to struggle with your pet when housebreaking 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. You will need time, a little more involvement, as well as some training tools such as puppy training pads.

The New Doggie is the Boss

For dogs and puppy owners, there are two major rules that you should stick to when training your pups. First and most importantly, don’t punish your pup for something you did not catch 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. Let them know through praises and rewards when they do something right.

Housebreaking/House Training your Puppy

Many methods exist for housebreaking your puppy. When starting indoors, encourage your pup to use puppy training pads or papers to go to the bathroom on. These pads are treated with chemicals that make puppies want to use them to do their business. 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 the new dog is comfortable with the papers or puppy training pads, they can then be put near the door or even outside. The transition is accomplished by focusing their toilet habits in a specific in the home to an outside place. In the very near future you will have no need for papers or training pads indoors.

The only major problem or setback with this puppy potty training method is that it takes a longer period of time to encourage the puppy to do his bathroom rituals indoors. Other popular methods of house training puppies involve puppy crate training or the use of cages plus constant pet owner supervision.

The maximum amount of time that dogs can hold their bladders and bowels is between seven and eight hours, so you should keep that in mind when using a crate or a cage, trying to housebreak your dog. 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. Leaving them in their cage or crate for very long, however, is not good to do.

The use of crates/cages and papers/puppy pads is not required if you have constant supervision. In this case, the owners elect to be with their puppies for as much time as necessary. For people who are retired, work from home, or pet owners that have the spare time to be with their puppy, this is the ideal situation. Pet owners can normally usher their dog outside as soon as the pre-potty signs are noticed with this technique. You need to keep a constant eye on your puppy to prevent any accidents or slip-ups.

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 training. Do not lose heart!