Many of the dogs I see are not toilet trained. The first question I always ask these clients is “How often does shadow NEED to go to the toilet?”, the answer I get most often is “I don’t know.”
Toilet training becomes immensely easier when you can answer this question with complete confidence. There is a quick rule of thumb for house training puppies that is; 2 months old = 2 hours, 3 months old = 3 hours, 4 months old = 4 hours, etc… Then your puppy can probably hold a little longer at night. Some puppies can sleep through the night, others might need a potty break.
The way to figure out how often your puppy actually needs to go is to start timing her. I encourage my clients to keep a Training Log. You keep the notebook by the door and whenever anyone takers her out for a break they write in the book; what time, what she did (pee or poo), and how long it took. Keeping the log will keep everyone in the house on the same timetable and show you quite clearly how often shadow actually needs to go out.
For people that have their dog mostly toilet trained (1-2 accidents/week). keeping the log will help you get over that last hurdle. However for beginners (young puppies) you will probably need to do a bit more to ensure the house is accident free.
1. Shadow should NOT get free reign of the house and should always be supervised. This is especially true when she hasn’t had a break in awhile. If you can’t supervise her, then I highly recommend getting a crate and doing some positive crate training. She can stay in the crate with a chew toy when you are too busy to watch her, and she may not be “empty”.
2. Keep to a schedule, and let her out before she HAS to go. This is especially true if you are having morning accidents. If she goes at 5:30 AM then set your alarm for 5AM! (then go back to bed). This will help her build her trust in you, she will get to go out before she feels like it is an emergency!
3. Always positively reinforce going outside. Give a special treat for using the toilet outside (a small bit of dried liver afterwards)! This will encourage her to hold it until she can go out, she learns to differentiate between indoors and out! Why would she go inside when she waits a little longer and gets a treat for going out!
4. For heaven’s sake don’t scold or punish accidents! That means no growling, yelling, slapping or rubbing her nose in it. All this will do is convince her of your insanity and make her try to hide the next accident in a closet, a shoe, or your kid’s room. If you have already started training this way, then stop immediately and start with the previous steps, build her trust in you again and you will start having less accidents. Although she may occasionally regress if she feels unsafe going to the bathroom outside when you are near.
The moral of this story is; stay positive and calm, clean up messes with no fuss, stay on a schedule, and reinforce with treats for going in the correct place. Stay consistent and you will have a toilet trained puppy or dog in no time at all!
