Puppy Potty Training Methods
There are two different methods of house training. One is better suited to puppy parents who are able to be at home for their puppies all the time. And the other one is adapted for puppy parents that have to go out during the day.
To help you choose the right one for you, well explain exactly whats involved in each.
Cons Of Paper Training
- If your goal is to get your puppy to eliminate outside, paper training can lengthen house training because your dog is taught to go inside the house first and you then have to basically re-train them.
- You also have a lot of stinky messes to clean up.
- Your puppy will always associate paper with potty, so you cant leave your newspaper on the floor next to the couch or you may find some unwanted new headlines.
Shower Them With Treats And Praise When They Do A Good Job
Make sure treats and praise come right after your puppy finishes eliminating, and make the praise enthusiastic and the food treat top-notch.
You want to make it crystal clear that eliminating outside is a great thing. Dont wait to get back to the house to give your puppy their treat they wont connect the reward with what prompted it.
Important: Take your puppy for a walk or give them some playtime as a bonus reward. If they always come straight back inside after eliminating, theyll learn to hold it to prolong their time outdoors.
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Getting Started How Do I Potty Train My 8 Week Old Puppy
Whether you call it potty training, house training or house breaking, you can make a start with teaching your puppy the right place to pee and poo from the moment you bring them home. In fact, it is important that you do this and that you make an effort to avoid accidents even in those very early days.
If you can avoid accidents as much as possible from the start, you will make faster progress this means the more effort you put in at the beginning, the better things will be. This is because puppies naturally like to pee where they have peed before. And so it is better not to build up any kind of history of peeing in your home if you can avoid it.
But whatever age you start your puppy potty training journey, youll find yourself navigating three key stages. And in this respect, how to house training an 8 week old puppy is exactly the same as how to potty train a 6 month old puppy.
Getting Started With Potty
You are probably wondering by now just how long this entire process will take. While there is no definitive answer, how diligent you are in following all of the aforementioned steps will go a long way towards determining how long it will take before your golden retriever is potty-trained.
Since every puppy is slightly different, the general guideline is that it will take as little as two weeks to as many as several months before the potty-training process is complete. As you begin the process, you will want to make sure you have the following items purchased, unwrapped, and ready to use.
The key is to do everything you can to deny your golden retriever any opportunity to relieve themselves inside the house. If you can do that consistently within the first few weeks, then you will find that potty-training is a thing of the past before you know it.
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S On How To Teach Your Puppy To Use A Dog Potty Bell
1. Introduce the Dog Potty Bell to Your PuppyHold the door potty bell close to your dogs nose. Use a spreadable treat like peanut butter or cheese to entice your puppy to approach the bell and touch it with his nose.For the buzzer bell, hold it in your hand and once your puppy touches the bell with his paw or nose, say yes and reward him with a treat.
Keep your potty bell training short for about 5 to 10 minutes. A puppy best assimilate information in shorter doses. Repeat until your puppy is comfortable and relaxed with the bell noise.
2. When your puppy touches the bell without hesitation, add word commands such as touch or bell, or outside, or ring the bell or any cue you want to give.3. Once your puppy learns the cue of touching and ringing the bell, hang the dog door potty bell on the doorknob or place the buzzer bell by the door.
It is important to pair your verbal cue with the physical cue. It means that when you say Ring the Bell also point to the bell or buzzer.
Also, always verbally praise your puppy and follow up with a treat. Positive reinforcement teaches your puppy that he gets rewarded for ringing the bell and going potty outside.
Use Crates And Puppy Pads
Crating is crucial when trying to potty train a puppy and work full time. If you give your puppy full reign of the house when youre gone, they will relieve themselves wherever possible. Using a proper size crate is also essential. If the crate is too large, your puppy may think they have space to both sleep and relieve themselves. Puppy pads work great for giving dogs the option of relieving themselves in the proper spot indoors.
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How Long Does It Take To Potty Train A Puppy Puppy In
Jan 2, 2021 How Long It Took To Potty Train Golden Retriever Puppies. *One note about our Lab and Golden puppy potty training tables. Deciding when a
Oct 1, 2020 Best Way to Potty Train a Golden Retriever Puppy · Step 1: Introducing a Crate to Your Dog · Step 2: Use the Crate to Give Your Dog His Meals.
Potty training · Consider the tiny bladder of the puppies: Puppies are unable to hold their urine for long due to their small bladder. · Walk your puppy frequently: Of
Cons Of Crate Training
- The main reason crate training wouldnt be beneficial is if your puppy has a background of abuse where the crate was used to confine them for long periods of time. When puppies get used to sleeping in their own filth, they lose this natural instinct to keep their crates clean.
- Crate training shouldnt be used if your dog is ill or has a medical condition that makes it impossible for them to wait to eliminate. Your dog shouldnt have to sleep on soiled bedding!
- If crate training is only used to confine your puppy for long periods of time, he may associate it with negative things such as isolation. Make sure you use the crate in positive ways so your pup associates comfort and good things, such as food, with the crate not just being left alone.
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Always Practice Positive Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement is the key to successful potty training. Positive reinforcement will teach your puppy that they get rewarded for going to the bathroom outside.
Each time your puppy eliminates outside, immediately reward them with verbal praise, treats, or a favorite toy. The reward should immediately follow the event so that your puppy makes a positive association with eliminating outside.
Being Too Relaxed On The Rules
While you shouldnt punish your puppy for accidents, you shouldnt coddle them too much either. For example, if you carry your dog outside like a baby instead of walking them out, they may refuse to go outside unless you hold them.
Also, if you bring your dog inside and reward them when they havent done their business outside either with treats or lots of free time outside of the crate then theyll come inside with a full bladder and no incentive to go potty outdoors.
Dont cave in! If your dog hasnt gone to the bathroom after a few minutes outside, preferably on leash, return them to their crate and try again later.
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Golden Retriever Obedience Training
A well behaved dog is a joy to be around and is welcomed by all in far more places than a dog who is out of control. But a dog can never learn how to behave properly without guidance from their owner.
This means teaching your Golden Retriever just a few basic commands that if they reliably follow, allows you to provide this guidance, to steer them through life safely, keeping them from ever being a nuisance or a danger to themselves or others.
The following articles discuss the basics of obedience training a golden retriever before taking you step by step through effective techniques to achieve a happy and obedient dog. Here are some training tips.
Continued Training: Adolescent Golden Retrievers
After one year, your golden retriever is technically no longer a puppy. They remain in their adolescence from about 1-3 years old. Sometimes during this period, even after a puppy has been very successfully trained, adolescent dogs might regress in their training. Dogs, like humans, like to test their boundaries. The best way to set a boundaryis to keep setting it without wavering.
This training at this age is also important to follow in the event you adopt a golden retriever in their adolescence
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Get The Right Size & Type Of Crate
Before you bring your puppy home, you need to get a crate .
Choosing the size and type of crate is critical to your success, so read this article about the best size crate for golden retrievers, but for the purpose of this post, Im going to tell you what we got for our puppy, Oliver.
We got Oliver a 42 wire crate with a divider.
The divider allowed us to keep it the right size for him as a growing puppy and since its 42 its big enough for him as a 75-pound adult golden retriever.
The wire crate helped because it was open so he could always see the people around him, which lessened his anxiety of being in there alone at first.
It also easily folds up, so we could break it down, throw it in the car, and take it on vacation or to our parents houses for the weekend.
Using Punishment Instead Of Positive Reinforcement
Punishment is never an acceptable or successful training methodology. Outdated training techniques used to suggest hitting a dog with a newspaper or rubbing their face in their excrement to teach them a lesson.
Dogs do not associate these behaviors with doing something wrong. Instead, punishment teaches your puppy to become fearful of their owners or other people who try to punish them. Remember that potty training takes patience and kindness!
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Ringing Bells To Go Outside
Now that your dog is an expert bell-ringer on command, its time to help her understand that she can ring the bell herself whenever she wants to go out. But you also need to show her that potty time is the only time to ring the bell. After all, you dont want her ringing it nonstop.
To train your dog when to ring the bell, follow these steps any time you go to take your dog outside for a potty break:
- As you approach the door with your dog, say touch, and point to the bell
- As soon as your dog touches the bell with her nose, click or say yes! and give her a treat reward
- Do this every single time you take your dog outside
As behaviorist Mikkel Bekker points out, consistency is key: All members of the family and caretakers need to encourage the new signal, all the time. With enough repetition and consistency, your dog will learn that in order to go outside, she has to touch the bell with her nose.
The first time your dog rings the bell on her own, throw a party: praise her enthusiastically, give her a treat, and take out outside right away. Then, as soon as she goes potty, give her another treat. This will help make the connection between ringing the bell, going outside, and eliminating in the appropriate place.
Use Crate Training As An Aid To Potty Training
Crate training is a very effective tool to help not only with potty training your puppy, but also with creating a safe place for your puppy to call home. Dogs are naturally den animals, so their instincts will tell them to find a quiet place to eat and rest at the end of the day.
Dogs do not like to eliminate where they sleep or eat, so training your puppy to be comfortable in a crate is a great way to prevent them from having accidents in the house. The crate should not be used as punishment, but it should be used whenever your puppy cannot be directly supervised and for naptime and bedtime.
Choosing the correct crate size is extremely important, especially for large breed dogs that grow rapidly during puppyhood. Keep in mind that your puppy should only have enough room to stand up, turn around, and lie down comfortably.
Any more room will give your dog room to rest in one corner and pee or poop in the other. Many crates come with a divider that can be moved as your puppy grows.
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Constrain Your Puppy Until Potty
Your golden retriever puppy needs a lot of attention. Since you cannot always be there for your dog 24 hours a day, it is important to keep them constrained when your focus is elsewhere. This will prevent them from having too many accidents in the home.
If you are busy in the house, do not be afraid to put your puppy in a crate for a few hours. Crate training is effective for potty training, and it helps prevent your puppy from causing other accidents around the house.
Another benefit of putting your golden retriever in a crate is that dogs generally do not like to pee where they sleep. They will wait until you get them out of the crate. When you do that, take your retriever outside immediately to their favorite spot and allow them to relieve themselves.
How To Crate Train Your Golden Retriever At Night
One of the most frustrating things for a new puppy parent is the whining and barking at night when theyre trying to sleep.
Oliver was an awful sleeper for the first few weeks that we had him and it drove me absolutely bonkers, so if youre in this position right now, I know how you feel!
But dont worry, it will soon pass, and here are some tips to help it pass.
First, its important to understand that puppies can only hold their bladders for about an hour per their age in months.
That means that a two-month-old puppy can only hold it for about two to three hours, so expect to have to wake up two or three times every night until they get a little older.
That being said, here are five tips to help your puppy learn to sleep through the night:
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Using Potty Pads With Crate Training
Puppy pee pads should not be used as a substitute for going outside, unless you have a special situation such as living in a high-rise apartment or have limited mobility. Allowing puppies to eliminate on potty pads inside the house can confuse your puppy about where theyre allowed to eliminate. This may slow down the potty training process and should be avoided if possible.
How Potty Training & Crate Training Work Together
Dogs are very clean animals and they naturally try to avoid going potty where they sleep or relax.
We can use this to our advantage by having them sleep in a crate, and then putting them in a crate when we dont want them to go potty, such as when we want them to take a nap or go to sleep for the night, or if were unable to supervise them during the day.
However, this can make crate training tough because if a puppy is in the crate and they have to go potty, theyll usually whine or bark.
If we let them out , they may learn that whining and barking gets them out of the crate even if they dont have to go potty, so they may start barking and crying every time theyre in the crate.
So its a delicate dance of knowing when your puppy will have to go potty, taking them out before they start whining, and making sure to never put them in the crate with a full bladder.
P.S. Read this article to learn more about potty training your golden retriever puppy.
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