1. The importance of a routine

Dogs respond to routine excellently well. Setting a stanch routine to pity train your pup involves taking them to their designated at fixed times of the day and keeping a fixed rotation of activities. In other words, a puppy’s life should be a monotonous pattern of one activity following the other, eg – eat – sleep – play – potty – repeat.

If you consistently crate your dog immediately after a they come back from a walk for a couple of hours and take your dog to their pee/potty spot soon as they get out of the crate, after a few days they will find their way to the designated area without being prompted to do so.

A fixed routine also allows a puppy to adjust their body clock accordingly and will help you accurately predict when they need to relieve themselves.

2. Take the help of a crate

Crates, when used correctly, can be a blessing in disguise and an incredible training assist tool. Preventing accidents and building bladder control are two of the most crucial aspects of setting a pup up for potty training success. A crate comes in handy in helping you achieve both. Puppies instinctively don’t soil where they sleep, unless forced to do so.

If they get a free range of the house, they would repeatedly have accidents everywhere, thereby delaying the process of potty training. Crates help in building bladder control by teaching the puppy to wait to be let out to pee/ poop.

Make sure to not leave your pup in the crate for far too long. Doing so may force them to either soil the crate or they may end up ruining their health while trying to hold their pee in.

Crates are known to accelerate the process of potty training by fourfolds.

3. Have ONE designated spot

Having multiple pee pads in the house or multiple surfaces like pee pads and grass patch all at once, expecting your pup to relieve themselves indoors and outdoors are some things that may highly confuse your pup. When potty training your pup, make sure to have only one designated spot. Lead them to this spot as frequently as possible and reward for every successful attempt.

Make sure to accommodate your puppy’s preferences too. Some pups may prefer peeing only on a particular surface whereas some pups may prefer indoor to outdoors. Allow your puppy to pick their choice of spot (as long as it’s not in a random spot in the house).

4. Reward reward reward

Puppies perform and repeat behaviors that get them rewards and attention. This is the basic principle behind positive reinforcement. It is not only a technique which is applied to teach dogs new behaviors, but also to reinforce existing behaviors.

Rewards is what differentiates the designated spot from all the wrong, random spots in the house where your pup is likely to have an accident. SLowly but surely, your puppy would start associating the designated spot with rewards and may want to relieve themselves willingly in that spot.

Have a bunch of your puppy’s favorite treats ready in their designated spot. This will make sure you are capturing and rewarding the behavior at the right time, one of the most crucial factors while setting your dog up for potty training success.

5. Avoid giving free range of the house

Welcoming home a new puppy is exciting. We want to know everything about them and we want them to know everything about us and the house they are going to be living in. However, giving full access to the enstire house from day 1 will do more harm than good.

A puppy must be able tp track their designated spot fromwherever they are in the house. Now, if the spot is in the living room and they are all the way in the bedroom, they will end up having an accident on their way to finding the spot. The more accidents they have, the more difficult potty training gets.

During the initial few weeks of potty training, give them access to only one room at a time wth all their resources and their pee spot in close access.

6. Look out for signs to prevent accidents

Puppies are experts at communicating through signs and body language because that’s the only way they know how. If you spend just a few days observing your pup, you would be able to notice some behaviors that they may engage in before peeing or pooping. Some generic pre-pee behaviors include –

• Sniffing excessively
• Wandering off
• Whining and barking for no apparent reason
• Going towards the door or the designated spot
• Sniffing the spot where they generally have accidents
• Excessive biting and nipping
• Restlessness
• Circling
• Crouching

7. Knowing exactly when your puppy needs to go

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could tell exactly when our puppies need to pee or poop. In reality, it is not that complicated. Puppies to catch on to routine and can predict activity patterns throughout their day and so can their body clocks. There are certain times of the day when they would definitely need to pee, such as –

1. First thing in the morning after they wake up
2. 15 – 20 minutes after their meals or drinking water
3. 25 – 30 minutes into any kind of physical activity like walking, running or playing
4. After any nap during the day that exceeds 25- 30 minutes
5. Last thing before they hit the bed
   
   

8. Use a leash

Immediate correction is the key in stopping an accident from taking place. Attempt to catch your puppy in action or right before they pee. However, once you successfully stop the accident from happning, avoid picking your puppy up and placing them on the pee pad. This is a displacement strategy that may just confuse them and does not teach them to track their designated spot.

Instead of picking them up, have your pup on a leash when they’re active and roaming around the house. Use it to gently guide them to the designated area when they are about to have an accident or communicate signs that they need to pee. This will accelerate the results because they are actively learning to track their designated spot.

There are millions of pieces of information available out there on potty training. Yet, it remains to be one of the most tedious and tricky aspects of puppy training and raising. Invest time and energy during the initial stages of potty training and look at it as a long-term investment that is sure to bear fruits (or poop!)

During the first three months of their life, a puppy’s mind is like a clean slate. They are particularly open and responsive to learning and retaining information, experiences, and events that they encounter during the first 13 to 16 weeks after birth.

By the time they reach 16 weeks, they will have formed a perception about the environment they are living in. This perception could be positive or negative. Once this perception is formed, any effort to change it would not be considered as socialization, but desensitization.

1. Take frequent downtime breaks

Downtime allows dogs to process and retain information that they’ve absorbed during the day. It encourages calm behavior and promotes better mental health and well being. Without downtimes, puppies would keep getting overstimulated and hyper with no means to calm themselves down. This may result in undesirable behaviors like excessive vocalization, nipping, jumping etc and may eventually lead to anxiety.

To ensure downtime between longer play sessions, you could crate your dog for a few minutes from time to time, create distance from the exciting stimuli, practice cues like Settle to help your pup calm down faster.

2. Engage in obedience training

The main objective of obedience cues like Stay, settle, down, etc is to help pups behave in a desirable way in day-to-day situations and make it easier for humans to communicate better with them. These cues act as enablers while helping puppy smoothly transition from a hyper state of mind to a calm one.

Next time when your puppy goes out of control displaying hyper behavior, try putting them on a leash and actively engaging them in calming commands. Make sure to reward them for every successful repetition.

3. Reinforce calm behavior through the day

Puppies repeat the behaviors that gets them attention or rewarded in some way. We often ignore our puppies when they are in a naturally calm state of mind because most of our time during the day goes in getting exasperated over undesirable behaviors and correcting them. Unintentionally, we end up fuelling the bad behaviors because those are the ones that get the most attention, leaving the calm behavior disregarded.

To encourage calm behavior through the day, it is imperative for us to proactively mark and reward those behaviors as and when they happen. Eg- if your puppy is sitting inside the crate, not making a sound, just  being a good kid, make sure to verbally praise them and reward them with some treats. Doing so multiple times a day will motivate your dog to be calmer through the day and also enjoy doing so.

4. Provide your pup with ample exercise

Different dog breeds have different exercise needs. 2 walks a day does not for every dog. Some of them need more, much more. Lack of ample exercise is often the cause of hyper behavior.

Recognize your breed’s needs and focus on engaging them in activities accordingly. Eg, Border Collies were bred to be herding dogs and have a lot to offer in terms of energy, intelligence, quickness and resilience. They have strong herding instincts which cannot be fulfilled by walks. Games like agility or sports like Treiball provide them with appropriate outlets to harness their natural instincts.

Attempt to strike a balance between physical and mental stimulation activities to ensure proper enrichment for your dog. A balanced exercise schedule will make sure your puppy grows up into a calm, confident canine.

5. Crate training

Crates make excellent training assist tools. They help build bladder control, they keep puppies safe in the absence of humans, prevent accidents, help puppies settle down faster and prevent destructive behaviors. If used correctly, crates make great spots to optimize downtimes, keep puppies busy while teaching them the art of self engagement.