Potty Training a Puppy: The Basics You Need to Know

Potty training a puppy is one of the first projects to begin once you bring the pup home. The basic steps are easy to understand, though following them will take some patience. The steps are: Keep the puppy close to you whenever you can. At particular times, quickly get him to the place where you want him to potty. Do any clean-up in a calm manner. Repeat the first three steps many times. Eventually your puppy will be potty trained!

Here is more information on each of these four points:

1. Have your puppy as near to you as you can, as much of the time as you can. That way, you will be more tuned in to when he needs to go out. Sometimes you will catch him just as he starts something and you can firmly say “No” and carry him or walk him to where you want him to be.

You can keep the puppy very close to you by connecting his leash to your belt. So then if you go somewhere, he does too! You may not get as much done on other projects as you are used to, but you and the puppy will be bonding.

Whatever method you choose, do keep your puppy nearby. You may want to use crate training for those parts of the day when you have to be apart. That topic isn’t covered in this article, but I do write a lot about it at my dog training website.

2. As you potty train a puppy, he will gradually come to understand what it is you want. You want him to go to his pottying spot and do his business there. He will learn this faster if you take him to his place whenever he may need to use it. This includes:

*** Every time he wakes up.

*** A little while after every meal, or ideally even after a large drink of water.

This means a lot of trips for you and the puppy over the course of a day. Also take him out shortly before you go to bed at night.

Where will his pottying place be? If you have a yard with a fenced part to it, you can actually teach him to use a part of the yard by taking him there. If you have no yard, or an unfenced one, walking him on leash is another good way to potty train him. A third option is to paper-train him inside… often good if you live in a very cold climate or many floors up in an apartment building.

3. Calmly clean up anyplace that his urine has soaked or that he has left a pile. Yelling at him does not help, because he really will not understand why you are upset. If it helps you, as it sometimes has helped me, you can remind yourself that this process should last a lot less time than if you were potty training a little human!

4. Repetition is a very important part of the potty training process, as dogs learn that way. So keep on doing each step, as often as you can.

So these are the essential points in potty training a puppy. Best wishes to you and your puppy!