Easy Puppy Potty Training

Potty training a puppy is one of the easiest tasks in the whole world. You don’t have to be a certified dog trainer to learn how to housebreak a puppy. You do, however, need to know how a puppy works, and you do need to be a little smarter than he is.

Puppies are not born with fully developed digestive systems. A puppy’s digestive system grows and matures along with the rest of his body. When a dog is grown, he will need to urinate twice a day, and his bowels will need to move once — provided you feed him right. But a puppy is different. A puppy doesn’t have as much control as a grown dog.

The first thing that you need to do is to put the puppy on a regular feeding schedule. Do NOT leave food down for him to eat at will. Young puppies need to be fed three times a day — morning, noon, and evening. Their bowels will move immediately after they are fed. Remember that I said that you need to know how a puppy works? Well, this is the way a puppy works; food in = poopie out, every single time.

The other thing that you need to know about how a puppy works is that a puppy IS going to urinate (1) after he plays; (2) after he sleeps; and (3) after he eats. He might urinate at other times, but these three situations will always make the puppy urinate.

So potty training is simple. You choose the place where you want the puppy to learn to relieve himself. Choose ONE place only. For paper training, the paper needs to be put in one place. For outdoor training, one spot needs to be chosen. Then IMMEDIATELY after the puppy plays, sleeps, or eats, pick him up and take him to his designated place. When he performs as you want, praise him to the high heavens. Puppies LOVE praise. When he has an “accident,” tell him that he didn’t please you with just a firm “NO” and take him to his designated place. Do NOT ever, ever hit a puppy with your hand or a rolled-up newspaper or anything else. It isn’t necessary. You’ll have him trained in just a few days.