Housebreaking a puppy is not difficult if you are committed and patient. Remembering that you are working with a baby that is in a stage of development where they can pick up bad habits will help you when you are trying to plan your potty training strategy.
It is important that you remember that yelling and rubbing their nose in the mess is not going to make a puppy “learn” to go potty outside more quickly. If anything, they will begin to smell the mess throughout the house and your training will be more difficult. So, these simple steps will be a great help when you are trying to find out how to potty train a puppy easily.
It will be much easier to train your puppy to go outside if you start training them to do so. While newspaper training is used by a lot of people, it is often hard to get the dog to go outside once they have got a spot in the home where they always go. Plan on training your dog to go outside from the very beginning.
Take your dog outside first thing in the morning, right after they eat or drink, and last thing at night. By developing this habit, they will learn much more easily to wait until morning to go potty. Additionally, don’t feed your dog two hours before bedtime. If you feed your dog snacks right before bedtime, you will probably have a mess to clean up in the morning.
If you dog starts sniffing or turning in circles, take it outside, to do it’s business. This is one of the main signs that a puppy will give when it is looking for a place to potty. You will also want to take your pet out after they have been playing.
When there is a mess, and there will be, clean it up immediately and use a deodorizer to remove any odor from the floor or carpet. If you praise the dog when you take it out, whether or not it goes potty, and ignore it when it makes an indoor mess, it will quickly connect the praise with doing it’s business outside.
Another great tip is about using cues. Dogs are great at responding to sounds. If you have fed your dog canned food, you know how they will show up the minute the can opener starts. Using this technique got teaching your puppy to go potty is very easy. Set a timer or bell for 45 minutes to an hour. When the bell goes off put your puppy out to go potty. If you are consistent, in a very short time, you dog will go outside when a bell goes off.
If you are consistent with this method you will find that when they hear a bell, they will expect to go outside. Another twist on this is to use a little silver bell. If you tie it by the door, when your dog needs to go outside, it will ring the bell. This is a very easy and time saving “trick” to teach a dog. Creating habits is one of the great tips for housebreaking a puppy quickly and easily.