Toilet Training Puppies

One of the most common problems people have regarding the training of their new pup is training the puppy that it must go outside to "toilet". This in short is teaching the pup to desire to go to the toilet outside the house. One reason many owners find this type of training difficult is due to there being so many “wives tales” and “old techniques” still in practice in regards to toilet training. In this article, we will not only give you the correct techniques to make toilet training easier as well as we will try to dispel some of these wives tales and techniques.

Toileting for a dog, like so many other behaviors that a dog exhibits in it’s life, is based in habit and conditioning. When we talk about conditioning we are talking about the dog behaving in a certain way every time that a given stimulus is present. In this case that is “needing to go to the toilet”. When a dog is young it will experiment, offering behavior/s and action in varying ways. If these behaviors result favorably for the dog they will be repeated. If these behaviors are repeated enough with success each time they will then be conditioned and the dog will repeat them over and over again for many years to come if they are reinforced successfully periodically when the stimulus is present. A practical example is when we teach sit to a dog we give the command of “sit” and when the dog goes into the sit position we praise him/her (we may give him/her a treat etc). Overtime when we give the dog a “sit” command he/she will resume the sit position. The dog is said to be conditioned that when it hears “sit” it is too perform that action. The opposite is also true. If the dog finds the result to be an unsuccessful one then the dog will not repeat them and the behavior will be extinguished from the dogs exhibited behavior.

When toilet training, we use the dogs natural experimentation and natural ability to be conditioned to repeat successful behavior and its ability to extinguish non used behaviors to teach them were to go to the toilet. Every time a dog goes to the toilet in an area, if this is successful for it, then it will repeat going in that area again. Also if a dog never goes in that area it will extinguish this as a reasonable place to go and will learn to resist going in this area. So if we wish for the dog to go to the toilet outside we must get the dog to go outside and reward it for this (toileting of course is self rewarding as relief comes with it). Too do this of course we must have the dog repeatedly toilet outside, without letting it toilet inside the house, thus conditioning it to go outside and extinguishing the desire to go inside. It is very important to not let the dog go inside the house, as this will teach the dog that it is normal and therefore successful to go inside. So in short the way to toilet train is to take the dog outside before it goes to the toilet every time. This will teach the dog it is successful to go outside and extinguish toileting inside the house from the dog’s behavior.

Now to the inevitable question of “how to do I get the dog to go to the toilet outside all the time?” An 8 week old puppy when awake and active will need to relieve itself on average about every 20-40 minutes, after every meal and after every sleep. When asleep most puppies of this age will last about 3-4 hours between toilet breaks. So this means that when awake the puppy will need to be taken to the toilet every 20 minutes approximately, after every sleep, after every meal and at least once during the night. In doing this you will reduce accidents and will be conditioning the puppy to go to the toilet outside as this will be the place that is repeatedly successful. For us, if the pup is awake and we're playing with it we will set our alarm clock for 15-20 minutes and once this time is up, we take the puppy outside until it goes to the toilet. This normally is not long. (Over a very short period of time the puppy will learn that when it goes outside that it goes to the toilet. The first few times may take a minute or two however in the end it is a very short wait). We do the same after each meal and when it wakes up. We also get up about every 3-4 hours after we have gone to bed to take the puppy out to the toilet. (Yes this can be hard but it is necessary). This way, we never allow the puppy to go to the toilet inside.

Like we said above, if the puppy goes to the toilet inside it is then learning that this is successful and will repeat it. One of the biggest problems people have with toilet training a puppy is that the puppy goes to the toilet inside the house as they are too busy to keep an eye on the puppy, thus conditioning the pup to do this. If you are to busy for one reason or another (lets face it who isn’t at one time during the day or night) it is very important the puppy not be allowed to just wonder and do what it pleases when it pleases. So if you are too busy to watch the puppy and take it outside as required, either place the puppy outside, or in a crate or safe confined area so that it does not go inside the house. If it never does then it will never learn too.

Of course, mistakes happen and we need to know what to do in this case. This is where a lot of people get into trouble due to the old wives tales we spoke about. Discipline has no place in toilet training. Techniques like rubbing the dog’s nose in it and putting it outside simply do not work. Dogs do not have the cognitive ability to make the association of what it has done and the discipline that it faces for this behavior and therefore how to avoid getting the discipline again. In all likelihood if any association is made for the dog it will be made for going to the toilet full stop, not for going where it did. We don’t think we need to point out the problems with such an association. So if you make a mistake and the dog goes to the toilet in the house, simply place the dog outside and clean the mess up like nothing had happened and start again. We use a lemon disinfectant or white vinegar as it smells less like urine than the ammonia based bleaches etc. Getting mad and punishing the dog will only lead to confusion and stress towards this matter for the dog thus making the time taken for the dog to learn longer.

Many people also ask us what to do if the dog has already learnt to go inside the house or is an adult dog that has never learnt not to go in the house. (It is very rare for an adult dog that has been kept outside the house for a long period and is brought inside to desire to go inside, as it will usually be conditioned to go outside. The exception to this can be a dog that has spent large amount of time in a run etc with a concrete floor so the area where it is the normal place to go). Well the fact is with dogs such as these the same rules apply. The dog simply must be taken outside every time before it goes to the toilet. Now this can be far more difficult as the dog can go a lot longer between breaks and you cannot know when. However in most cases the same rules apply to meals and long periods of sleep. It just requires more time and patients. toilet training

In conclusion, the keys to toilet training is get the puppy to repeatedly toilet outside and very rarely (never if possible) toilet inside the house. Sticking to these rules, toilet training a puppy will be very easy and take only a small amount of time. 1-2 weeks would be about average. Also, always remember that disciplining a puppy for going to the toilet inside will be of no use and more than likely cause problems for you and it, not only in this process, but for others further down the training process.