House Training Your New Puppy

Follow the guidelines below to make house training as easy as possible for your pet. 

• Start at the ideal age.  The best time to start housebreaking a puppy is when it is 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 weeks old.  At this age, you can teach the puppy where to eliminate before it has established its own preferences.  But, don't worry if your puppy is older when you start housebreaking; it will still learn though it may take a little longer. 
• Six to eight times a day, take your puppy out to eliminate.  Choose an appropriate spot to take the puppy immediately after it wakes up, after a play session, and 15 to 30 minutes after meals.  If you take the puppy to the same spot every day, previous odors will stimulate it to urinate or defecate.  Many puppies need 15 to 20 minutes of moving around and sniffing before they eliminate.  Stay with the puppy the whole time.  Housebreaking problems can result if you're unsure whether the puppy actually eliminated and you let it return to the house too soon.  Remember that the puppy needs to focus on the job at hand, so don't play with it until it has eliminated. 
• Use a key phrase while your puppy eliminates.  If you repeat the same phrase (e.g."go potty" or "take care of business") every time your puppy eliminates outdoors, it will learn that this phrase means that it's the right time and place to eliminate. 
• Once the puppy eliminates outdoors, immediately reward it.  Reward the puppy by praising it, giving it a treat, or playing with it.  But, remember to reward it at that time.  The puppy will not learn to eliminate outdoors if the reward comes when it returns to the house.  Instead, the puppy will think that it's being rewarded for coming inside. 
• Supervise the puppy indoors as well as outdoors.  Find a room in your house that allows you to watch the puppy as much as possible.  This will help you catch the puppy if it starts to eliminate indoors.  You can also leash the puppy or put a bell on it to help you keep track of it. 
• When you leave home, put the puppy in a crate.  When you can't supervise the puppy, leave it in a small puppy-proof area such as a crate.  If the crate is large enough to accommodate the puppy as an adult, partition the crate to avoid having the puppy soil one end and sleep in the other end. 
  Remember that a young puppy's bladder and bowel capacities are limited, so let the puppy out at least every four hours. 
•  Don't punish after the fact.  If your puppy has an accident in the house, don't go get the puppy and rub its nose in it.  This doesn't do any good because the misbehavior has already occurred. Instead, try and catch the puppy in the act.  If you see the puppy getting ready to house soil, don't swat it, but rather stamp you foot, or shake a can filled with pennies, or startle the puppy by 
  yelling "outside!"  The puppy will likely stop what its doing and then you can take it outside. 
•  Don't leave food out all day.  Feed your puppy at set times during the day and remove the food bowl after 20 minutes.  This will create regular intervals at which the puppy will need to eliminate. 
•  Thoroughly clean areas where the puppy has eliminated in the house.  It is important to clean soiled areas completely, otherwise the puppy may return to it and house soil again. 
•  Stick with the training program.  Most puppies can be successfully housebroken by 14 to 20 weeks of age.  But, a pet may take longer to housebreak for many reasons.  If you are having difficulty housebreaking your puppy, let us know and perhaps we can help.  

 Information provided by Debra F. Horwitz,
DVM, Dipl. ACVB, Veterinary Behavior Consultations