Ensuring Your Puppies or Dog’s Good Health Is Essential
Make sure your puppy or dog is healthy before undertaking housetraining.
Intestinal parasites are the most common cause of inappropriate defecation.
Bladder infections are a frequent cause of inappropriate urination.
Have a stool sample checked by your veterinarian. If you suspect a bladder
problem, have a urine sample checked as well. Symptoms of bladder infection
include frequent urination of small amounts, unproductive straining, or licking
of private parts.
Feed your puppy a good quality puppy food. Avoid over feeding or making sudden
changes in his diet; both can cause diarrhea.
Another common problem arises when a dog has been given steroids to treat a bee
sting or allergic reaction. Steroids usually increase the dog’s water intake and
urine output.
Scheduling
Feed your puppy on a fairly regular schedule, two or three times a day. Allow 10
minutes for each meal, and remove the leftovers after that time.
Maintaining a feeding schedule helps predict output.
Schedule your puppy’s trips outdoors. The average puppy needs opportunities to
eliminate. Start first thing in the morning with a trip outside as soon as your
puppy awakens. Puppies feel the call of nature about every hour when they are
awake and playing. They need to go out soon after eating, and after drinking
water. By the age of 10 or 12 weeks, the average healthy puppy can sleep through
the night. If your puppy has an accident, examine the schedule and make
adjustments to prevent future accidents.
Confinement
One of the most valuable tools in housetraining is the dog crate, a better word
is a “Den”. Intended to be used like a baby’s playpen or crib, the crate keeps
the puppy safely confined when no one is available to supervise her.
Crating prevents accidents for the normal puppy, because her instinct to keep
her nest clean is very strong Crating also prevents her from destroying your
treasured possessions while she is teething, or injuring herself by chewing on
or. ingesting something harmful.
Your puppy should be crated at night while you are asleep, and any other time
you cannot supervise his activities. This includes times when you are on the
phone or in the shower, or doing anything that prevents you from paying full
attention to your puppy. He should have an opportunity to go outside every time
you let him out of his crate.
Training
Every time you take your puppy outside, give her plenty of cues. As you walk out
the door with her, say, “Let’s go outside.” Take her to her spot, and repeat
your cue phrase, as she is about to eliminate. (Be sure to use a phrase that
does not come up in every day conversation. Avoid cues such as”hurry up or be a
good dog” in favour of something more specific, such as”do your piddles or wee
wee.”)
When she goes, praise her enthusiastically and reward her with a very small food
treat, right there on the spot. After several repetitions of this routine, your
puppy will learn to eliminate on cue (very useful in bad weather or strange
places) and learn that eliminating outside is more fruitful than eliminating
inside.
After a week of this, continue to praise the puppy every time she goes outside,
but reward with food on a more random basis. In a couple of weeks, you won’t
need the food reward at all.
Accidents
If you find an accident, clean it up, and consider adjusting your puppy’ s
schedule to prevent another accident. Punishing your puppy only teaches him to
be wary of you. If you catch him in the act and punish or correct him, he will
learn to eliminate when you aren’t looking, which will defeat your training
program.
If you should see your puppy circling as if he has to go, gently remind him to
“go outside” and help him get to his spot where he can earn praise and a reward.
Accidents happen most frequently in the morning or evening when the puppy is out
playing with the family. It is easy to become so involved in an activity that
you forget that the puppy hasn’t been outside in an hour. If this is the case,
find a way to remind yourself, such as setting a kitchen timer or alarm clock.
Patience
Unrealistic expectations are a frequent cause of problems in housetraining.
On average, the bladder/brain connection is not fully formed until the
puppy is about 8 months old. If a young puppy does go to the door and “ask
to go out,” his need is immediate, he must go out right away. Some dogs never
learn to ask to go out, while others learn quickly to go to the door and sit or
bark or ring a bell. Some dogs learn to use a dog door easily and go out
whenever they feel the urge.
The best way to ensure success is to stick to a schedule long enough for the
puppy’s body to adapt to it and get in the habit of eliminating at particular
times.
Neuter or Spay
If you are not planning to enter your dog in conformation competition, neutering
or spaying helps ensure successful housetraining. Neutered males still lift
their legs, but are less inclined to mark their territory (including the
priceless antique chair legs and the floor-length drapes) They are also less
prone to certain cancers and prostate problems that can lead to accidents in
older dogs.
Unspayed females ovulate twice a year, on average. For several weeks before and
during the heat cycle they are more prone to mark territory. They are also more
vulnerable to bladder problems that can lead to accidents. Paper Training Is Not
Housetraining
Teaching your puppy to eliminate indoors on newspaper does not lead to success
in housetraining. Dogs are place oriented, and once taught to go in a particular
place on a particular surface will continue to do so. Careless newspaper readers
are liable to reach for a section they left on the floor only to find it has
been used by the family dog.
If you must confine your puppy for more than six or eight hours at a time, or if
you live in an apartment with a small dog, consider using a “litter box” for
your dog. A plastic under-the-bed storage container, lid removed, filled with
bark mulch will serve this purpose very well. The mulch absorbs urine odors, and
smells and feels like “outside.”
You can confine your puppy in a small room, such as a bathroom, with a baby
gate, giving him enough room for a comfy bed, his water dish, and his mulch box.
This approach works well for young puppies and very elderly dogs with health
problems, and is less likely to interfere with your efforts to train your dog to
eliminate outside.
Never send your dog away to be trained.
Dogs want to be trained and there is so much proof that trained dogs are
invariably happier than an untrained dog. All trained dogs have happy owners.
Great satisfaction can be derived from training a dog. It is not time consuming
and most training can be done whilst exercising the dog.
If you do not have the time to exercise your dog then you should not keep a dog.
Training classes undoubtedly contribute to better training of dogs. One great
advantage of classes is that they accustom the puppy or young dog to meeting
other dogs and owners get an opportunity to meet people with a common interest
and often a common problem.
Many people are regarded as experts when they have trained a dog of one breed to
a very high standard. Faced with a difficult dog they would not know where to
start. Training methods vary just as much as dogs and their owners do. There are
however, many accepted exercises that form a useful basis for most dogs and most
owners.
Many people do not fully realise their responsibilities and try very hard to
comply and end up with a dog that will bite, causes a road accident, etc., Why?
Few owners understand canine mentality
Owners must not regard dogs as ‘Almost Human’ this is an insult to our canine
friend. Dog has become man’s best friend, not because he is ‘Almost Human’ but
because he can do so many things that we cannot do. In this day and age we still
do not know how dogs do some of these things, such as detecting mines and drugs.
Intelligence is not an important factor in a dog’s make up.
It is a fact that nearly all problem dogs are very intelligent and certainly a
fact that few dog owners understand canine instincts and their importance in the
man/dog relationship.
Dogs and indeed all animals learn by association of idea’s, animals do not
reason at all, they simply react to what is happening and do not think what has
happened or is about to happen. It is believed that they do sometimes work out a
problem for themselves.
All training should be based on the assumption that the dog does not reason and
that he learns by association of ideas.
For training purpose we try to create associations we want and avoid those we do
not want, by what is known as correction and reward. Correction does not mean
beating the dog or jerking him on a choke chain, it means any act, which forces
the dog to obey, like pushing him into the sit position.
Many dog owners will never know or have any idea of the pleasure they are losing
in not having a dog that is trained to be a faithful companion and partner.
A dog will accept a human master as a substitute for a canine leader and this
willingness to accept a human makes him easier to train than most other animals.
David the Dogman