You have you perfect puppy comfortable in his cozy den. Plenty of toys available, the nice warm blanket for a bed and your neat potty area made up of newspaper on a large tray. After every nap you faithfully put puppy on the papers and hold him there until he does something and then praise praise praise and reward. This works like a charm at first, you know you have the smartest puppy in the world. But then puppy decides the potty papers are better playthings than his toys. He scatters them all over, rips them vigorously or decides they make a great bed. Then he pees on the bare floor.
You faithfully clean it all up, redistribute the paper and start all over.
The first few days of potty training require constant vigil. Young puppies bladders last about 20 minutes. So about every 20 minutes you need to take puppy to the paper and encourage him to use it. It is so important to keep puppy confined at this time so there are no accidents throughout your home. Even a few accidents throughout the house can cause lasting potty training problems.
Then comes the hideous diarrhea. You wake up in the morning to runny yuck all over the pen and all over your pup who appears to have rolled, flopped, skidded and played in it. Pups do occasionally get diarrhea that lasts for a short time. If it lasts longer than a day check with your vet.
So you faithfully clean it up and start fresh again.
About this time you decide newspaper just does not cut it. It doesn't soak up very well and is too easily scattered about. Pet stores have puppy training pads that absorb wonderfully. However they are expensive.
A good reference for house training is Drs Foster and Smith Pet Education.
There are several different methods for potty training puppy depending whether or not you have a lot of time to devote or are away from home for long periods of time. Doing this right, however is tremendously important for everyone's happiness!
Remember lots of praise and rewards when puppy does it right.
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10 years ago
Great information! I like that it is well-written but not "over-written" I have always had dogs and can say with confidence that your blog provides important relevant information for anyone new to dog training. I love your pictures in your blogs, Gunner is so cute! My one suggestion is to try to work some more multimedia in to your blog if possible to make it more interactive. I kike the fun dog facts in your sidebar.
ReplyDeleteI have gone through this phase twice now of raising a puppy and the blog brought back memories, some good and some bad of puppy behavior, especially when it comes to potty training. I like this post because it talks about real experiences that anyone could and most likely will encounter with potty training. The diarrhea part is definitely not fun!
ReplyDeleteI like how you offer not only the cheap method of using newspaper, but you also offer the option of using pads which are more expensive, but they keep your house a little more clean at the same time.
You even post a link where you could find more information if you are having trouble training your puppy which is something I think almost any owner would appreciate reading. Puppies are cute, but not always perfectly trained angels when they are young!