My Companion Dog School K.P.T. Course May-June, 1985 Instructor: Ginny Lunt Housebreaking Your Puppy Housebreaking your dog is the first training you will be doing. It is never a pleasant task, but it need not be something to fear. It should not be viewed as a pitched battle with your puppy, but rather as your first opportunity to teach your pet how to get by successfully in a human world. There are two primary techniques available to you for housebreaking your puppy. Both of them have as an eventual goal a completely reliable household companion. Both of them require that you confine the dog when you cannot watch it. There are no short cuts in housebreaking. If you attempt to discover one, you will only pay for it later. Whichever method you choose, when you are with your puppy, you should be constantly watching his behavior, and you should take him outdoors to relieve himself whenever necessary. Paper Training: Paper training is the method more familiar to most people. It is, however, a fall back method which you should select as your first choice only if you are unable to return to your puppy at least once during the day. Throughout the housebreaking period, please remember that your puppy is a baby, and can respond positively to your training only in so far as he is physically able to do so. Accidents which occur during your absence must be cleaned up quietly, out of the sight of your puppy, and must be accepted as something that the puppy could not help. Paper training a puppy is generally quite simple. Confine the dog to an area which is completely lined with several layers of newspaper. Keep the area as clean as possible by picking up any soiled papers whenever you find them. You are trying to teach your dog to be a clean member of your household. Forcing him to spend time unable to avoid his own waste will teach him the opposite. Gradually, over the course of several days, reduce the area which is papered until there are only three or four pages in a small area. It is an unusual puppy who doesn't choose the papered area in which to relieve himself. If you are the unfortunate owner of a natural pig, don't panic. Allow yourself some time with the puppy in the confined area. Anytime the puppy begins to relieve himself off of the papers, quietly and calmly scoop him up, and with a firm "No," place him on the papers and praise him immediately when he relieves himself. He should begin to get the idea quickly. As strange as it may seem to you, begin at this point, whenever possible, to name these bodily functions. When you begin to train your dog to go outdoors, many dogs can have their attention called back to the matter at hand if it's been given a name. Say, for instance, as soon as your dog begins to urinate, "Good boy! Hurry up!" Keep your tone light, and make sure your puppy knows you're pleased. When you're standing in the pouring rain someday, you'll be glad your dogs knows what you mean when you tell him to "hurry up." By the time your puppy is 6 months old or so, depending upon his or her individual physical capacity, if you have been taking the puppy out properly whenever possible, you should be coming home to clean papers. At this point, remove the paper from his area. It was never your intention to train him to go within the walls of your home; only to accomodate his baby capacity. Crate Training: This is the professional's method of housebreaking. Beyond housebreaking, the correct use of a crate will have many applications in your dog's life. Once your dog is accustomed to his crate, it can be used for the rest of his life as his "safe place." It also can be used to prevent or correct many types of problem behaviors. Here, the crate will be discussed in terms of housebreaking alone. Remember, however, that this is the puppy's introduction to his crate for all other uses as well. If handled correctly at this point, the crate will remain your most valuable piece of equipment in the years to come. A crate taps into a dog's natural inclination to keep his den clean. If you cannot return to your puppy at least once every three or four hours until he's about 4 months old, crate training will not be as successful as it should be. A young puppy is not able to control his natural functions for longer than three or four hours, and if required to do so, will undoubtedly be forced to soil his crate. If your schedule does not allow you to properly use a crate for housebreaking purposes, select paper training. Even if you elect to paper train your puppy, the use of a crate is highly desirable for a number of other reasons. Remember, a puppy is every bit as capable of eating a carpet as he is of soiling it. A fully house-reliable dog must learn more than toilet etiquette, and a crate is indispensible for truly happy home comings during the first year of a dog's life. The following housebreaking schedule may be modified to fit your personal routine. Remember, in so far as possible the idea here is to let the dog's natural instinct to stay clean work with you, and that your puppy is a baby with a baby's physical limitations on control. Housebreaking Schedule" (feel free to adapt the particulars to your own needs; pay attention to the intervals of time rather than to the specific hour. Observe your puppy; his behavior is your best guide to his particular needs) 7:00 a.m. - walk puppy - offer food and water - walk puppy - let puppy play in your sight while you do your morning things and try to wake up (be prepared to rush puppy outdoors again if he needs to go) - crate puppy after play so he can rest and you can get ready for your day - walk puppy briefly prior to leaving him for the day - crate puppy 10:00 am. - walk puppy - let puppy play for about fifteen minutes - crate puppy 1:00 p.m. - walk puppy - feed puppy - walk puppy - play with puppy, indoors or out - crate puppy 4:00 p.m. - Kids (if you don't have any, adopt some) walk puppy and play with puppy until everyone is tired and quiet. If you don't have kids, and can't adopt any, you're elected. Aren't you glad you got a puppy? 6:00 p.m. - feed puppy by 6:00 (no food or water after this) in order to help puppy get through the night dry. - walk puppy - let puppy spend time with family 7:00 p.m. - walk puppy - play with puppy - crate puppy (or allow it to spend quiet play time with family for the evening, depending on your energy levels, not his). 11:00 p.m. - walk puppy - crate puppy overnight (preferably in someone's bedroom) This schedule, demanding as it seems, will get you to a fully housebroken dog the quickest. In so far as your personal deviations from this schedule result in accidents on the dog's part, you will be slowing the housebreaking process. We all have lives, though, and as long as you are aware of your puppy's needs, don't let an occasional accident throw you. Be flexible with this schedule in so far as you need to be. Be rigid only about your compassion for and understanding of your puppy as a baby, and you'll soon have a happy, clean house companion. Important tips to remember in the use of your crate: - some dogs take to a crate more quickly than others. Introduce your dog to his crate slowly. You may have to start by shutting him in it for only a few minutes at a time. Try to release him while he's being quiet, not when he's crying. Don't let him train you. Don't let him assume that all he has to do to be let out of the crate is scream. - remove any collar your dog is wearing before crating him. A snagged collar can be a frightening experience at best. At the worst, it can result in a strangled dog. - never use the crate for punishment. Don't drag your dog to the crate and force him into it. If he's mangled Aunt Millie's Persian rug, and you really don't want to see his happy, smiling face for a while (until the urge to kill him passes), let someone who is calmer than you calmly put the dog in his crate. Or count to ten, don't yell, drag, or strangle, and put him there yourself. Win an Oscar nomination for the way you praise him for going in. - don't use a crate to isolate your dog. Don't crate any dog for more than 8 hours at a time. Don't expect even an adult dog to go for more than 8 hours without relieving himself, anyway (could you?). - do use his crate as his bed, as a home away from hom when traveling (you'd be surprised how much happier old Aunt Millie is to see you and your dog if you've brought his crate along on your visit), or as a place to confine him when you have non-doggie guests. Make his crate his personal space within your human world. Make sure his peace and privacy are respected when he chooses to go to his crate. Keep the kids from pestering him when he's there. - during the housebreaking phase, do not give the dog water in his crate for obvious reasons. If you choose to confine an adult dog to a crate for any length of time, a bucket of water can be clipped to the mesh with a snap bolt. Remember those diapers when your kids were small? Well, they didn't last forever, and housebreaking won't either. This is, unfortunately, both the beginning of your relationship with your dog, and the most trying period the two of you will go through together. Smile a lot. Praise your puppy a lot. Keep your sense of humor. Don't go bare foot. Praise yourself some, too. And remember ... the more you put into housebreaking, the less time it will take.