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