It might take 4-6 months for a puppy to be completely house trained, although it can sometimes take a year.
If you’ve just brought a new dog home, house training may be on your list of priorities. It can seem like house training is an impossible task, but house training your dog can be easy with the right methods and techniques.
Here are 6 top tips to make house-training your new pup as stress-free as possible.
Read More:
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- House Training a Puppy | Potty Train a Puppy the Easiest Way
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- The Importance of Training During Your Dog’s Early Life
- Should You Wake Your Puppy up to Pee at Night?
1. FStart House Training as Soon as You Get Your New Dog
House training can be a long process. But there are some great ways to speed up the learning curve and teach them faster than they would learn independently.
If you’ve just brought home a new puppy, house training should start as soon as possible.
Try house-training your new pup straight away before they get used to any old habits like barking for attention or toileting indoors without permission. This will make house training much easier going forward.
Dogs quickly form bad habits, which can prove difficult to break later on. And the longer you leave it, the harder house training can become.
If your new dog has already formed some bad habits, house-training them will require a lot of patience and perseverance to get through what they’ve learned so far. But with determination and consistency, house-training any old bad habits is possible.
The sooner your pup learns that barking for attention or toileting indoors are not ok behaviors, the easier house training will be moving forward.
Once you’ve got rid of all their bad habits, you’ll speed up future learning. They won’t have previous learnings to reference back to during house training sessions.
2. Set a Routine to Stick to
Stick with house training for as long as necessary. And make house-training part of your pup’s daily routine from the very beginning.
Sticking with house training and setting a regular schedule will speed things along considerably.
If you keep house training consistent and set enough time aside every day, your dog should start going potty outside within weeks instead of months or even years.
House-training is much easier if you have an already established daily routine in place so that your new pup knows what comes next. A good house-training routine will help them know when it’s house training time, mealtime, or playtime.
If you have a consistent daily schedule, house training should be easier to manage and keep on track. Setting aside enough time every day at the same time is important if house training is going to work well.
A good house-training schedule includes set times for eating meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) as well as potty breaks outside before bedtime. It’s also beneficial to take your dog out first thing in the morning after breakfast to go potty right away instead of having accidents inside.
3. Focus on One Room at a Time
Toilet training is much easier when you house train one Room of your house at a time. And it’s best to start house-training in the rooms that your dog spends most of their time in, And these should be the biggest rooms with easy access to outdoor areas for potty breaks.
Start house training by focusing on just one Room first instead of doing them all at once. It’s too difficult and stressful if you try doing multiple rooms or bigger spaces right away. You’ll also have more accidents this way since there are so many distractions.
Just focus house-training efforts into one single area until they’re going potty outside. And once your pup can do this for one Room, you’ll be able to move onto house training a new area or space with much less stress and more success.
4. Give Your Dog Lots of Positive Reinforcement
Give your dog lots of positive reinforcement to show that house training is working out well. And rewarding them with treats, attention, and affection works great.
Positive reinforcement helps speed house-training considerably because it encourages good behaviours like going potty outside instead of making accidents inside the house. It also shows how they’re doing right, which will help build their confidence too.
If you want house-training efforts to be successful, praise your pup frequently when they go potty outdoors or in an appropriate spot indoors. When they finally succeed at house training by using puppy pads or going potty outside, it will be much more rewarding for both you and your pup.
5. Be Patient
Toilet training your dog may take a long time. And you’ll need to be patient for house training your new puppy to work out well.
You might have many accidents at first when house training puppies because they haven’t learned many things yet. They also learn much more quickly during this stage, so it’s normal if house training takes some time before their habits are formed properly.
Young pups will likely have potty accidents inside the home several times before they can go outside instead. But with patience and consistency on your part, house-training any old bad behaviours is possible.
6. Understand the Signs of Elimination
When house training your new pup, it’s important to understand the signs and signals of when they need to go potty.
House training is much easier if you can pick up on these cues.
Watch for key behaviors like sniffing around a lot, circling their spot, or acting restless while standing in one place for too long with no apparent reason.
These types of actions let you know that they might need some time outside soon because something isn’t right. And being able to tell what your dog needs before anything happens makes the whole process just a little smoother overall.
Once you know and understand the signs of elimination, you’ll have taken a huge step towards controlling pet odors and pet stains.
House Training Your Dog Simplified
House training a new puppy is more of an adventure than anything. It might take some time and patience on your part to get the hang of house-training efforts, but it’s worth doing.
