Friday, July 15, 2011

5 Useful Positive Reinforcement House and Potty Training Tips for Your Dog

If you have brought in a new puppy or dog home then the first thing that you must start working on is house training or potty training your puppy. It will take anywhere from few days to few weeks to fully house train your dog, but it may vary from dog to dog. Clicker training is the best training method to quickly and efficiently house train your pup. I have some useful tips for you to get started with the house training your dog that will make the entire process faster and easier for you.

Staying alert – If you are having a 5 to 8 weeks old puppy hanging around in your house, then you must be always monitor his movements, esp. if you see any sniffing or circling around then you must quickly take him out to a spot to relieve itself. You will soon get used to your pups relieving signs and the process will get easier day by day. If you can’t monitor your dog continuously, then it is recommended to confine your dog to a crate or a pen or a room preferably bathroom with potty pads and that is doggy proof.

Dealing with accidents – It’s no use punishing your dog for an accident inside the house. It will only help in straining the relationship between you and the dog and will confuse your dog. The training won’t be effective and will take much longer than expected. The dog will be afraid of doing its business in your presence and will hide and start eliminating behind the couch or under your bed. If your dog goes potty inside your house, there is no use yelling at him, just be calm and clean it up with a good cleaner that can completely remove the odor, so that your dog won’t be tempted to eliminate at the same spot.

Fix a Feeding Schedule – Keep a fixed feeding schedule for your pup or dog. Pups need to be fed thrice a day – morning, afternoon and evening, and adult dogs only need to be fed 2 meals per day. This will bring about an easy to predict potty schedule for your dog.

Know the Potty Schedule -You would require taking your pup or dog out 10 or 15 minutes after a meal or after playing or after getting up from a nap. Adult dogs have a good bladder control and can hold their bladder for more than 3 or 4 hours. Pups would need to eliminate itself every hour or two. The bladder control will develop with age.

Marking and reinforcing - If he starts squatting immediately mark that behavior by clicking with a clicker and wait for him to finish his business to reinforce the behavior by rewarding him with a yummy treat. Later on you can add a cue or command like ‘potty’ when your dog starts squatting. Your dog may not do it’s business immediately, so wait for 10 mins, if it doesn’t eliminate then walk him back inside. Repeat this until your dog goes potty outside the house. You will soon get to know your puppy’s potty habit and your puppy will also learn what you expect out of it. Things will start to become much easier in course of time.

Remember, punishing the dog – yelling at it after an accident or other physical punishments is both physically and psychologically dangerous for the dog and can lead to many physical and behavioral problems in your dog. Negative reinforcement training methods are considered to be outdated and are unsafe and unhealthy for the dogs. Positive reinforcement methods, esp. clicker training has been proven to be the most safest, humane and efficient method to train your dog.

2 comments:

  1. After the puppy eats or drinks, take him outside to go potty within about 10 minutes. A puppy will always need to go to the potty shortly after eating or drinking. Control when the puppy eats, as well. He does not require a full bowl of food available at all times.

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  2. Toilet training your dog is not that hard of a task but it requires loads of commitment and consistency Toilet training your dog

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