Proven Dog Training

I think most people I talk to use the same method of house breaking puppies. Puppy goes on the floor someone finds it they take puppy put his nose near it say no and take puppy outside. This really doesn’t work that well, puppy does learn over time but it’s usually a very long time. Extra care needs to be taken that someone is watching puppy at all times. This is where the use of crate training helps. By using the crate or kennel you are using the pups own instinct to not go in his bedding area to encourage him to hold it for as long as he is able. Use a crate that is just big enough for him to go in, turn around and lay down comfortably. This means as puppy gets older and grows you will need to get a bigger crate. When nobody can keep an eye on him then put him in the crate. Obviously you don’t want to do this for extended periods as he can only hold it for so long. If the puppy is kept in the crate for too long then he will have an accident in the crate and it wont take too many of these accidents before the puppy will just start going in the crate. If this happens you’ve just made housebreaking 10 times harder. It can also be in your best interest to confine the puppy to a small area of the house during housebreaking to be able to better monitor his activities. Now we have a crate everybody is taking turns watching the puppy and puppy is getting used to the crate. When puppy starts to sniff in an area with intense interest or is starting to circle in one spot then get close to puppy and as soon as he starts to go on the floor scoop puppy up say “NO” firmly and take him outside. Stay outside with puppy until he goes saying repeatedly some form of command like “go pee” , “Go on the grass” or “go now” etc… Someone should be taking puppy out every hour and saying repeatedly “ go pee” and when puppy goes praise him profoundly I feel I need to take a break here to say a little about commands. The words for commands are not written in stone, such as sit. The common command for sit with Springers that are in field trials is “hup”. My point is that you need to be selective on commands and compare them to each other. An example is if your dogs name is Bo then you are not going to use the No command as it is too close to the sound of his name, instead use bad or bad dog. Okay now back to housebreaking. Finding the mess later and taking the puppy back to it does little more than teach the puppy that the mess is bad, not the act of making the mess. A puppy really does not make that association between doing the act and the mess that it makes. I have found that if I find the mess any more than a few seconds after puppy has done the deed, then correction at this point has no positive impact on getting puppy housebroken. You will have people telling you how they trained their dog in 3 days or you may see ads on training systems that will do this. I’m not going to say that this is not possible But I will say do not let this get you down or think you do not have a good dog because it takes longer for you. I have had dogs that have shown that they know what I want them to do and will ask to go out after 7 to 10 days but even those dogs have continued to have accidents until as late as 6 months. I have also had dogs that I thought were totally housebroken after 3 to 4 months that all of a sudden start having accidents at 5 months. I don’t consider a dog fully housebroken until they are at least a year old and haven’t had accidents for 2 to 3 months. I know in my last post I had said not to start any other training until after puppy is house broken. I should clarify that to be until you feel he knows what is expected. If the puppy is going to the door and whining or trying to get your attention when he has to go then you know he is getting the idea. When puppy is asking to go outside most of the time that is the point that I would move on to introduce other commands such as sit. I have found that teaching puppy how to ask to go outside has also helped with housebreaking. Go to a door that has a low glass window or a sliding glass door. Go outside and have someone bring puppy to the door. When puppy comes to the door call to him and kneel down to get to his level. When the puppy puts his paws on the door have the person inside open the door and let puppy come to you. You then praise puppy and you can even give him a treat at this point. After puppy starts showing he knows what to do move to a door that has no window and do the same process. This will help get past that stage where puppy doesn’t want to make a mess inside but isn’t sure exactly how to get outside. Remember patience is the key and don’t expect too much and you will have a wonderful companion for years to come. "