Housebreaking a puppy is the process of training your dog to urinate and defecate. As puppies cannot hold their urine or bowels until they are around three months old, they need to be accustomed to the procedure through housebreaking.
It takes time and patience to housebreak a puppy. It is important to understand that the learning skills of your puppy can be entirely different from the skills of another, and that the training cannot be rushed through.
In order to introduce the puppy to housebreaking, you have to keep your puppy in a small room in your home. It should be secured by a baby gate rather than a closed door. This is where your puppy is going to learn to stand up and run around. It must find comfort in this place before it can begin to learn.
It is thought that the best approach to housebreaking a puppy is to set, and stick to, a simple routine. If you are consistent with your training methods, you will find that your puppy will learn faster and better; soon enough he will defecate and urinate on his own.
The next step you need to take to housebreak your puppy is to determine the area of your yard that you want your puppy to use as its potty area. Your chosen place will become your puppy’s outdoors comfort zone, and is where the actual training will take place.
What you should do is take your puppy to the potty area every so often. Wait around in the area until it begins to defecate or urinate, and then give the puppy a treat. This is necessary to give your pet the cue that it is doing what you want and that you are rewarding it for doing so.
You always have to reward your dog for a job well done. It can be great if you incorporate useful words like go poo or pee in there, so that whenever the puppy hears you say those words, he knows exactly what he is supposed to do.
Consistency really is the key to success with this. Take your puppy to his comfort zone as soon as it wakes up in the morning and just prior to putting it to bed at night.
Another important consideration to take into account is the puppy’s feeding schedule. Again, consistency is important. Choose your feeding times and stick to them, even if it begs for food at other times.
By feeding your puppy at consistent times each day, you can start to learn its bowel and urine habits. You decrease the chances of your puppy urinating or defecating in an appropriate place if you know about what times of day it normally needs to relieve itself.
Finally, it is important to ensure that the puppy is getting the right diet, as some types of food will cause irregular bowel movements. Stick to plain foods meant for dogs to begin with, and only introduce plate scraps and leftovers when it has made good progress.
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