puppy training

Puppy Potty Training and Housetraining

By Nancy Richards

Housetraining-Puppy2

Bringing a puppy or an adult puppy home is as great a responsibility as bringing home a newborn child. You need to train it really early to get the best out of it. And, as you will agree with me, it is always better to catch it young and watch it grow into a well-trained puppy.

Two of the most practiced housetraining methods are the Crate training and the Paper training methods. Let me share some valuable information on both the training methods with you.

Crate Training

It is advisable to put a new puppy or puppy in a crate so that it learns from the very beginning that the entire house is not its playground. It may seem harsh when you see the tiny little thing trying very hard to make its way out of the crate. Hold on! One mistake at this stage will make you repent for the rest of your life.

The crate also makes you mobile with your Puppy. Your puppy can easily be taken for a trip if it stays in the crate. Moreover, it is also safe in households where puppys are not that welcome.

Most importantly, the crate marks your puppys territory for good. Now, your Puppy will not understand on its own that the crate is its home. You need to train it that way.

How do you do that?

The Crate training process needs a lot of patience, persistence and pain. Firstly, you need to select the right crate for your Puppy. It should be spacious, comfortable and (as per your requirement) portable. Secondly, positioning the crate is vital. Many behavioral problems may or may not arise, depending on where you place the crate in your house. Make sure to place it in a room where the family spends most of the time. As a result, your Puppy will not feel isolated and neglected. A soft towel or blanket on the floor of the crate will make your puppy more comfortable. Your puppy should associate pleasant things with the crate. Offer treats and say sweet nothings to your puppy as soon as it goes near the crate. Place food near or just inside the crate. If your puppy crosses the door, repeat the act by placing the food further inside. Repeat this exercise till your Puppy associates the crate with food (even if the latter is placed way inside the crate). Next, your puppy needs to stay inside the crate for the whole day. This will not be possible in a day. This needs a lot of practice and training. You have to begin this exercise by keeping your puppy inside the crate only for a few minutes in the beginning. Leave the room instantly. Return after a few minutes to see how it copes with your absence. Gradually, stay away from the room for longer periods of time. By doing this, you are conditioning your Puppy to your absence. Your puppy also needs to follow the command to enter the crate when you want him to do so. Again, your puppy needs to stay inside the crate at night. I would advise you to place the crate in your bedroom or very near it, in the very beginning. Slowly, move the crate away and place it where you want your puppy to sleep. Make sure it is easy for your puppy to get out and eliminate at night. Despite all the advantages of crate training, keeping the Puppy in the crate for very long has its own share of problems. The crate is basically a medium of confinement. Too long a confinement takes it toll on your puppys physical and emotional needs. Puppies should never be kept in the crate for more than three or four hours in a day. This is because they have little control over their bowels and bladders. Once they associate the crate with elimination, you will have a tough time dealing with the exercise again.

I hope this information is useful to all puppyowners.

Next, I will share some information about the Paper training method.

Paper Training

Paper training a puppy is usually practiced by puppyowners who stay out of the house for very long and for those who live on umpteenth floors of sky-ripping highrises. I would suggest all puppyowners to use newspapers because of two main reasons. Firstly, they are cheap and can therefore be thrown away after every use. Secondly, the paper quality is such that it makes a very good absorbent.

What you do is very simple.

It has a lot to do with the conditioning of the puppy to a particular place and object. You begin with papering the entire room except your puppys sleeping area. Instinctively, your Puppy wouldnt like to eliminate where it sleeps. It will go to the papered area on its own. Every puppy chooses its area of elimination. Getting used to eliminate on paper and doing it at one particular place needs several weeks. Dont rush. Your puppy will make mistakes in the beginning. Dont scold it. Be stern and order it to do it only on the paper. Once your puppy decides on its area of elimination, slowly begin to reduce the papered area in the room. Remember to take the process really slow. Keep enough area around its chosen place of elimination papered. Praise your puppy and offer treats whenever it eliminates on the newspaper. It will soon associate elimination on newspaper with treats. This will make the training easier. After quite some time, when you are absolutely sure that your Puppy will only eliminate on paper, slowly move the paper (by half an inch a day) towards the place where you would like it to eliminate. In case of mistakes, use an odor neutralizer to do away with the scent of waste. By doing this, you disassociate other parts of the room with elimination. However, paper training is always not seen as the best method of housetraining a puppy. This is especially true for large breeds of puppys. If left to themselves in the house for too long, large puppys may see the entire house as their playground and they may eliminate anywhere, anytime.

I hope this information will be useful to all you puppy owners.

Nancy Richards has been a puppy lover for the past 12 years. She has owned and handled puppys of different ages and have helped many fellow owners in training their puppy. PuppyPottyTrain.com one of her sites has the aim to promote public interest in Puppys and convey by all possible means varied house training techniques for adult puppys and puppies.

Anybody is free to use the article in their website as long as an acknowledgement is given Nancy Richards