When can I start potty training my dog?
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at
5:29 pm
I have a 7 week old puggle (pug, beagle mix). She gives no warning before she goes to the bathroom. Is she too young to potty train? If not, how should I potty train?
Tagged with: Potty • start • Training
Filed under: Dog Potty Training
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Now is a good time! Sooner the better
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When they’re that young they don’t usually know they have to go until they start going. You should be taking the dog out as soon as it wakes up from sleeping (naps or overnight), after eating, after drinking, and especially after playing. If the play sessions are too long the puppy will just stop and immediately pee, so you’ll have to make sure to take breaks for it to go potty. You should keep the dog in a crate when you can’t watch it so it learns outside is the place to go to the bathroom. But 7 weeks isn’t too young to start. And don’t do the puppy pads or newspapers. Then the dog thinks any newspaper can be peed on and it will learn it’s okay to go potty inside, and believe me you don’t want that.
start training her now. the sooner the better. just take her outside when she wakes up, after she eats, well about every 30 minutes or so…when she does her business outside, tell her good girl and take her back in the house and give her a treat. only give her a treat when she does her job outside.. housebreaking takes alot of patience,,good luck and have fun with your little girl
NOW!!!! I actually trained by Jack Russell to go in a litter box….worked out awesome. I had a job where I was gone most of the day and so she went there. While I was home she learned to go outside….
There is a warning in her body language..you just have to notice and read it…It is not too earlay to begin, as the longer you wait, the more comfortable she will be doing it in the house..
Take her outside after every feeding. She will go about 5-10 minutes after being fed, at this age age. It will take awhile for her to learn/develop bladder control, but potty should be easier. Feed on a strict schedule, so that she isn’t fed just before bedtime, as she will need to go shortly after being fed..Young pups should be fed and then walked 4 times per day, until they poop…She will need more frequent outings for peeing…Walk her just before bedtime, to make certain she is empty..
Never scold for mistakes, but give lavish praise every time she goes outside, like she won the lottery…..Pups can only hold their pee for 1 hour, per month of age..So, its important to empty them just before bedtime..
Use the same word every time. Soon she will be ‘going’ when you ask her to…
The most important thing is to watch her closely, and scoop her up and outside when she begins to act restless, turn circles, etc. soon she will whine and look at you when she needs to go.
Be patient…If your patience wears then, talk to your mom, and ask her how long it took to potty train you…How many times she changed your diaper, and bedding….lol
First call him Bruno, and then….
Am I in the wrong question?
take her out after eating and after a nap this usually helps
Now is a great time to start. Start by putting puppy pads or newspaper on the floor, assuming she is an inside dog and you can’t bring her out during the day due to work. After she eats, place her on the pads and wait. She should go fairly soon. It really requires patience and diligence.
If she doesn’t go with in 10 minutes on the pad, let her leave but keep a close eye on her. Bring her back to the pads periodically. If she does start to go somewhere else in the house, and you catch her, bring her to the pads to finish. If you are not able to catch her going potty else where, and you catch her later, bring her to the spot she eliminated and give her a firm no.
She may not give signals that she needs to go, or she may, and you just don’t recognize them. A dog will usually start to circle or sniff before having to go.
You could also find some of her poop and put it on her pads or paper so she will smell it there and associate elimination where the smell is.
Good Luck.
I read the first 5 answers and have nothing to add, but I think yours is a great question and rated it a thumbs up. I wish more people would ask questions like this if they don’t know.
potty train her NOW!!! she will be harder to train later because she will be older and so used to going to the bathroom inside.
Start teaching the dog as of now. It might not understand you since the puppy is very young but now is a good time to start letting her out. Also if you have a contained yard that is best since your puppy is very very young and should really not be “exposed” to the outside dirt etc etc due to other dog diseases until she has most of her shots. Try paper training first until about 12 weeks or 16 weeks where she will have all the shots and every once in a while let her out. When my puppy ( a maltipoo ) was 8 weeks old she did not know what to do on a leash but now that she is 9 months old she walks just fine but still a bit intimidated. Remember its all about patience and persistance.
Good luck and enjoy your puppy
You should be starting right now but you need to keep in mind that a puppy this young has no control – they’re like babies, when they need to go, they go.
Keep the puppy in the same room you’re in while you’re training so you can keep an eye on her. Take her out right after a nap, after hard playing, after a drink or if she just hasn’t been out for a while. Teach her to follow you to the door (if you’re in a hurry, carry her). You need to go out with her and the split second she pees you give her lots and lots of praise, then come back in. This way she learns to differentiate between play time outside and potty time.
Dogs learn quickly with this method because they learn best with positive reinforcement. You’re praising for correct behaviour and not giving them a chance to make a mistake. Young puppies will always have accidents, however, so just quietly clean it up. If you catch her in the act, tell her no and take her outside, then praise if she finished outside.
You’re also building a relationship of trust between you and your puppy which will carry over into future training you do with her. Good luck!
No she is not too young to potty train, however don’t expect her to be accident free until she is at least 6 months old.
Start by taking her outside on a regular basis..every hour to hour & a half.Take her out after eating, before and after play time, after naps.Don’t allow her unsupervised to run around the house.If she has an accident don’t call her attention to it, simply clean it up using a cleaner such as Nature’s Miracle, OUT or simple Solutions.
Don’t use pee pads or newspapers to train her on..doing so can lead to potty problems and make it harder to retrain her to go outside.
No shes not too young to potty train. The earlier you begin, the better.
Is she consistently peeing in the same place, over and over? Or is it just random? If she is peeing in the same place over and over, she is smelling out where she peed the last time. Go get some newspaper, or doggy pee pads. Place them where she seems to be peeing all the time, or frequently. You may find it easier to train her to pee on the pads first. (Paper trained) Then you can start taking the pads outside with her, so she makes the transition that she is supposed to go outside. It really is all about a method you find easier to work with, especially one that works with your schedule. Puppies that small and young need to go outside every 30-45 minutes and especially after they eat or drink. If you work a full time job and are not home all the time, paper training may be easier for both you and the dog at first. If you have the time, just start taking the dog outside ever 30-45 minutes and then praise the dog ALOT when it goes outside. If it pees in the house, tell her NO, in a stern voice, say OUTSIDE, also stern and take her outside. You must have patience:) Good Luck 
Start immediately. Put her on a leash (you may have to carry her at first; do a Yahoo search for “leash training new puppy” to find add’l info) and take her out the exact same door, at the exact same times, to the exact same spot every day, after day, after day. More on this in a minute. If you are crate training your puppy then she may only be able to “hold it” for about 2-1/2 to 3 hours. The formula says 1 hour per month of age plus 1 (ex 4 month old puppy can hold it for 5 hours).
Seven weeks is still quite young. Most vets, breeders, etc. recommend that pups stay with mom, or least the rest of the litter for a minimum of 8-10 weeks. So, she may take a little while to catch on because she is immature. That should not stop you from beginning her training immediately.
If she is in a crate when you are out or at night, you might want to go ahead and put papers on one side of the crate and her bedding on the other. When she is a bit older (a few weeks from now) and can hold it longer, you can reduce the area of newspaper and get her to stop going in the crate alltogether. They actually prefer not to go potty where they sleep. The crate should be just large enough for the dog to stand up, maybe stretch out a bit, turn around and lay back down. Any larger and they will definitely establish a habit of using half of the area to potty.
I have dealt with hundreds, no, actually probably closer to thousands, of puppies over the years of animal rescue. Using the crating method with half the crate in newspapers had most pups paper training themselves in no time flat. Once you notice he is going strictly on the newspaper then you can put down papers in the room you are playing and he will go to them to potty. As he gets bigger and knows the house better then place the papers closer and closer (a little bit at a time) to the door you want him to go out of. When they are right next to the door and he potties, pick up the paper and put right outside the door while saying “potty outside”.
The key to this whole training this is rewarding good behavior and ignoring negative behavior. Rewards can come in the form of a favorite treat or simple praise. Use your high-pitched “happy voice” when praising a job-well-done and your puppy will understand he’s done a good thing. You need to ‘name’ behaviors that you want her to perform. When she squats to pee, tell her “good dog potty outside”. If you use treats to reward then give her just a tiny bit of something really special-one that she only gets when she potties outside. I use morsels of dry cat food when training pups. One Cheerio or half of a Cheez-it will also do nicely. By taking her out the same door on the same time schedule to the same place will set up the routine and she will easily put the sequence of events and the names you have given them all together. She will then respond accordingly. I use this same method when I train adult dogs that I foster for local rescue groups. It’s amazing to me, every time, just how incredibly fast they catch on. Often times these dogs are dropped off at animal control because their owners claimed “this dog just can’t or won’t be housetrained”. By being comitted to the task, persistant in our efforts and consistent with our methods, my family and I will usually have an adult dog asking to go out within a few days and have a puppy housebroken within the first week or so (depending on age). Let’s face it, these four-leggers a babies, just like our two-leggers and they have to be trained when and where to go potty too. I challenge you to completely potty train a human baby with 7-10 days!
You should also sign up for basic puppy obedience classes somewhere. Petsmart offers a great program at a realatively affordable price. They have sessions scheduled at all different hours, so you should be able to find one to fit your schedule. I recommend programs like theirs to all of my puppy adopters and every one that has followed up with me afterward say it was the best money they spent on their dog. Listen to the trainer and do what they say, they are teaching you to train your dog. Benefits include the socialization your dog gets with the other dogs and the people in the classes. I can usually tell “from a mile away” when some has taken their dog to any kind of training. It almost always results in a more peaceful, communicative relationship between pet and owner which shows.
I hope I have covered the necessary details here. If you still have questions then, again I recommend Petsmart, talk to someone who has a succesful history with training puppies. You can also refer to any of the following websites for additional information and resources: http://www.thepetprofessor.com/articles/article.aspx?id=2039
http://www.weeexpressions.com/potty_training_your_new_puppy_an.htm
http://www.valleypetnews.com/on_training_potty.htm
Also look here for tips and for a coupon for a free training session at Petsmart: http://www.petsmart.com/training/index.shtml
http://www.petsmart.com/global/articles/article_detail.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673361406&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696503965&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023689&bmUID=1157483484399&Ntt=potty+training+puppy&In=All&previousText=potty+training+puppy&N=2
** this is a good article that has the basics: http://www.petsmart.com/global/articles/article_detail.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673358634&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696503965&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023689&bmUID=1157483565743&Ntt=training&In=All&previousText=training&N=2
Good luck!
You can start today! Just take your puggle out every 2 hours, and when she does pee outside, make a big deal out of it. Just verbal praise and pets though, no food for housebreaking. Crating her at night will help, too. Make sure the crate isn’t too big to give her a “far away” place to pee, but make sure it’s not too small. She should be able to stand up and turn around in it.
Housebreaking takes time and dedication. You have to do it EVERY 2 HOURS! And you won’t be 100% effective for a few weeks, if not a couple months.
We just finally got our 2 pugs housebroken…one of them is 21 months, and the other is 11 months….what a pain that was!