The success of toilet training your puppy is dependent on a number of factors. Whether your puppy is indoors or outdoors, whether you are at home to monitor your puppy, whether you’re being consistent with the training, are all important factors. Here is an outline of a basic training programme, which you can adjust to your needs:
- When you begin toilet training, you must let your puppy know where you should like him to go. Whenever he wakes up from sleeping, take him to that area and when he does anything, reward him with a treat and lots of praise. Whenever you see him sniffing about the floor or about half an hour after eating do the same thing.
- It is inevitable that he will make mistakes, so whenever he urinates inside, soak it up in a paper towel, when he defecates, pick it up in a paper towel, with the puppy present and then take the puppy and his mistake and put it in the area he is to use for his toilet. Let him sniff it and then reward him.
- Punishing the pup or ‘rubbing his nose in it’ won’t indicate to him that he’s not supposed to toilet inside, but will make him think he shouldn’t toilet at all again and he will never learn that he should do it outside. It’s best to ignore the bad behavior as best you can and reward good or desirable behavior with lots of praise and treats.
- Puppies are very much like children; when they are young they don’t have strong pelvic muscles, and can’t hold a lot of fluid in their bladders. Until these muscles develop properly we can’t expect our puppies to go very long without urinating or defecating. Please be patient, toilet training can take a little time master