One of your first jobs as a dog owner is house training your puppy, and even if you do nothing else in terms of dog training, you’ll have to do this. That is, unless you are prepared to live with an animal that has no control over her toilet habits.

Fortunately, in most cases, it is easy. Choose a method, implement a plan, add a bit of patience, and you’re done.

In fact, all you have to do to ensure success, is to tap into your dog’s natural behavior. For starters, dogs are, by nature, clean animals and will never “do their business” close to where they eat and sleep, except in extreme circumstances.

Secondly, dogs love to please us and will do whatever it takes to make us happy.

Remember these two principles as you house train your dog, as they are the secret to success regardless of the method you employ.

Here are the most common puppy house training methods;

Supervision Method

Crate Training

Paper Training Method

Litter Box

The method you choose is entirely up to you, but my favorite is crate training. I have trained many dogs using this method and I am always blown away at how easy it is. This is probably because it taps the two aspects of dog behavior I mentioned earlier.

With crate training your puppy you use these behavioral aspects to your advantage - a much better approach than chasing your dog and trying to haul him outdoors, or to the paper every time he squats down.

Don’t feel you have to go with crate training though, because the other methods also work. Just choose the one you feel comfortable with. Whichever method you choose though, you will need to remain consistent, patient and positive. Shouting will achieve nothing other than making the dog afraid of you.

Never forget that she’s just a baby. You wouldn’t punish a baby that messed her diaper, or scream at her and rub her nose in it. So why would you do that to a little dog?

The puppy doesn’t yet know that she has done something wrong. But persist with your training and she’ll soon get the picture. Dogs are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. So stick with it and you’ll see results.

Want to see results even faster?

Then praise your pup when she succeeds.

Your puppy desperately wants to make you happy. When you praise her for ‘going’ outside, or on the paper, she learns that this behavior pleases you, and she’s encouraged to repeat the behavior, just to get more praise from you.

And don’t be stingy with the praise either. You need to make it very obvious that you are pleased with her behavior, so be enthusiastic, be effusive, be downright over the top!

Later, when you start obedience training, your puppy will already know that obedience equals praise, so in effect house training actually sets the scene for all your training efforts to come.

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