The Direct Method
This is the most common method. It invloves taking your puppy out to the back yard on a regular basis to a spot you want to use for your puppy’s toilet. You might have to do this every couple of hours. Give your puppy some short cue word like “Go Now”. If your puppy does the business, you’ll reward him with praise while he is peeing or pooping, and more praise immediately after.
If your puppy doesn’t go to the toilet when commanded, take it back in the house and confine it to a crate or small room for ten minutes or so, then take them back out to the yard and try again. Keep doing this until they pee or poop.
If they don’t toilet when taken out to the designated spot in the yard, it’s important to not praise or reward them in any way. Equally, don’t scold them as they won’t understand what they’ve done wrong.
After time and repitition, your puppy learns that this is the correct way to go to the toilet and will avoid toileting in the house.
The Paper Training Method
This is used when you don’t have easy access to the outdoors. Say for example you live in an appartment block. In this case you make arangements for the puppy to toilet in a designated spot in the house. Typically you would use a pile of old newspapers. There are commercial alternatives, like pads, dog potty trays and litter trays.
Old newspapers are the cheapest option. Dog pads are usually more appealing to puppies and dogs. Litter trays can be a problem as puppies often dig up the litter and scatter poop all over the place.
One downside of this method is your puppy could get quite accustomed to toileting on this type of surface. So when you are out and about with your puppy, it could be reluctant to toilet outside.
The Crate Training Method
This works great in combination with either of the above methods. However, it’s often missunderstood and abused. It’s not intended for you to put your puppy in the crate and then leave them there as a convenience to you.
They way it should be used is to confine your puppy to the crate for short periods, say half an hour at a time, as it approaches the time it should be due to go to the toilet.
If your puppy is introduced to it’s crate correctly, it should associate the crate as it’s den. A place of safety. A home. Your puppy will instintively not want to toilet in it’s crate.
So confining your puppy for short periods is a way to train it to control when and where it toilets.
If you leave your puppy unattended for too long, it won’t have any choice and it’s pee or poop in it’s crate anyway. In which case you are missing the point.
Further Reading:
housebreaking puppies
puppy housetraining
tips on potty training for dogs
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