Potty Training Tips for Puppies

- Do not rub the puppy's nose in the mess or smack the dog, that will teach the dog to hide it's accidents from you and you do not want that.

- Take the puppy out every hour or two to make sure there are no accidents.

- If the puppy needs to stay home by itself then confine it to one area like a bathroom or laundry room and if there are rugs in the room, remove them, soft items where the puppy doesn't sleep will make her want to go on it. If you do not want to put them in a room put them in an area where there is no carpet such as a kitchen with wood or tile floors will work as long as they have a baby gate/playpen to keep the confined to one area. If you are only going to be gone for about an hour then you can buy a crate or cage because a puppy will not relieve itself in a place where it eat and sleeps so put a blanket and a small food and water dish in the crate.

- Don't wait to start potty training your puppy, start as soon as they enter your home, and their new home.

- I've never potty trained a puppy with pee pads but when you leave them alone I would recommend putting pee pads on the floor in the play pen, so half of the play pen should be their bed and the other half pee pads so they will not go on their bed but on the pee pads.

- If your puppy does have an accident (all puppies will) make a sound like "NO" or "AH-AH" as they are going or as soon as you can get to them, then immediately take them outside and eventually they will get the idea that they have to go outside.

- I had to edit this post because I pre-write all of my posts, but I had to edit it because I wrote a schedule and I realized that a schedule is not going to work for a puppy because some puppies pee every 15 minutes while others an hour or two so you can't create a schedule the only thing that you can plan is when you are going to feed then then take them out, then when they wake up, take them out and that is the only thing you can really plan.

- Some people teach their puppies different ways to get their attention to go outside some ring bells, some sit on mats, some run back and forth, and some speak or bark at what they need. Personally I have never taught Coco how to get my attention to go outside she just learned herself to run over to me then to the door then to me and so on. When I hopefully get a new puppy I want to get the puppy to ring a small service bell to get my attention to go outside. This will take some time but every time right before you take them outside ring the bell for them and once they realize the bell is there then start taking their paw and hitting the bell then after training for some time they should think "Hey, she takes me outside when this thing makes a sound, so I'm going to hit it and then she will take me out!!!" You can also have a small mat and every time they need to go out teach them to sit on it and also after a while they should realize " When I sit on this mat she takes me out so I have to go, I'm going to go sit on this mat." Also, I don't recommend letting your dog bark, if someone is over and you have company, you don't want your dog barking like crazy and dogs naturally bark, so you are going to be taking your dog out way to much and 3/4 of that time, your dog doesn't even have to go out.

- I have never taught a dog how to use pee pads and I don't plan to, but I understand why some people do, if you live in an apartment or condo on a really high floor, then you can't always go all the way down just to go on an 8 min. walk with your dog just to take ten min. to get all the way back up. So that's why people use pee pads and if I ever want to I have some sort of idea how to. Just because you have a pee pad doesn't mean your new puppy will go on it. One way to get you dog to go is if they have an accident pat the pee pad on the accident to get their urine smell on the pad so that they will realize that that is where you want them to relieve themselves. Also, if you see your dog going to the bathroom then immediately set them on the pee pad and let them finish and repeat this every time. Same goes for if you teach your dog how to go outside. Also, I will NEVER teach a dog how to go on pee pads then switch to going outside, it will confuse the dog and you don't want your dog to be like that.

- To really make sure that your puppy will NEVER have an accident there are 3 things that you need to remember, your puppy either needs to be inside in your line of vision, outside with you, or in confinement. You should keep your puppy on a leash all the time and put in on your belt or pants then you can take it off and let him drag it around.

- One last thing is that don't expect your dog to be potty trained in a night. Your puppy isn't trying to take revenge on you by peeing on the floor, all dogs want to do is please their owners. That's another reason to not hit your puppies, don't hit them for your mistake, if anything you should be hitting yourself saying, "Why did I let that happen!!!"

Ok so this is a pretty long post but I hope it helped you and again for any questions email me at petspetshelp@aol.com and I will answer any questions. Hope I helped all of you new dog owners and please comment, and follow this blog for more tips on how to take care of your wonderful little pets.

xoxo,

Kirstyn

Update

In my last post I said that I want a Pomeranian and I know this sounds crazy but I changed my mind. I have done a lot of research and have decided that even though I've wanted a Pom for a really long time, a Yorkshire Terrier would fit our household a lot better. I like that they don't shed and they are about the same toy size and very similar in cost and grooming. So like I said it's crazy but a Yorkie would fit me perfectly! By the way, this post does not count as another post it is extremely short and I didn't even have to pre-write it. Next week it a really long post about potty training tips for puppies, and even dogs.

xoxo,

Kirstyn

Intro+ Meet My Pets

Hey everyone, I'm new to the blogging world and I could easily see me forgetting about this blog with my hectic schedule, but I am going to try my best to post every week or close to it.

So, in this blog I'm going to be talking about my pets and how to take care of the pets that you have. First, in this post I am going to be talking about the animals I have and my animal history.

At the moment I have two pets, one dog, and one hamster. My dog is a brown or chocolate colored Cockapoo (Cocker Spaniel Poodle mix) named Coco. No, not Cocoa, Coco as in Coco Chanel which happens to be her middle name. She is 4 years old and she came to me as a surprise, a family friend had gotten her and his wife said it was too much as they already had two other dogs. My mother was talking to him about how I wanted a puppy to go along with the new house we moved into so he just gave us the dog, with all aceeries included. She is a smaller dog, not toy sized, but smaller than a lab, she is 20 pounds.

Next I have my hamster who is a Fancy Russian Dwarf hamster named Teddy and he is a boy. I got him a few months ago, I don't remember what month, I think April or May. My hamster also came to me as a surprise after I extremely begged for one. He is mostly grey with a black stripe down his back and white fur around is feet.

I am really hoping to get another dog for my birthday, I only have 5 things on my wishlist for my birthday and Christmas, which are very close together, My birthday= Dec. 11 Christmas= Dec. 25. The number one thing on my wishlist is a Pomeranian (preferably white) I've wanted a Pom for a long time and getting one for my 13th birthday just seems perfect.

I have loved animals for ever and my dog Coco is basically my first actual pet that I have to take care of all by myself. Before I have had ducks, but they were at my grandfathers house so I just went over to his house to see them. I am familiar with larger breeds of dogs and have expierence with them. All last summer I puppy sat and dog say two golden retrievers. Also, another family member has a huge pitbull that I play with, not care for, but I know how they act, what the looks like, and so on.

That's pretty much it and I would like for people to email me and I will do a FAQ blog post and if a question gets asked all the time and if I think it's really important, then i'll do a whole blog post on it. Also, I would love to be a dog trainer so i have trained my dog fairly well so if you have any questions about training and even about potty training then I'll answer those as well, so please email me at petspetshelp@aol.com.

xoxo,

Kirstyn