Dogs are clean animals. But sometimes when they arrive in their new home, they will go to the toilet everywhere. Why does this happen and how can we toilet train the puppy? These are the questions that we will try to answer.

 

    How to teach your puppy to use puppy pads

When a puppy arrives at his new home, he will get overwhelmed and lost in the unfamiliar space. Of course, we love him so much that we're happy to let him have our whole house as his own and to introduce him to everyone and everything in our life. But the baby is too little to cope with such a large amount of information straight away. He wants to check out every single thing, and distracted in his play he leaves piles and puddles everywhere. We need to help the baby.

We need to set aside a corner in advance in a room with an easy to wash floor. The kitchen is perfect for this - the floor is easy to clean and there are always people there. The allocated corner needs to be closed off with a barrier tall enough that the puppy cannot jump over, but low enough that the owner can step over it. This barrier can be put together from common items such as cardboard boxes, an ironing board stood on its side, laundry baskets and so on. This designated corner should have a puppy pad or puppy toilet, a water bowl and some toys. This is where the owner will play and socialize with the puppy. If your puppy is always doing his business in one particular place, put the puppy training tray in this spot.

To get the puppy to only use the toilet pad, keep some treats on hand. As soon as the puppy pees or poops on the pad, stroke the puppy, praise him in an excited tone of voice, and give him a treat. If he goes to the toilet on the floor instead, you should just mop it up indifferently, and ignore the puppy. You can use a pet odor remover from a pet shop in the mop bucket.

When we see that the puppy is using the toilet correctly, we can start moving the barrier, expanding the space by 50cm every day. At night, you can put the puppy in a crate also containing a puppy toilet. This crate is best placed where you plan to keep it permanently for the dog to use.

 

    Toilet training the puppy to go outside

According to the laws of the wolf pack, puppies cannot defecate outside the den, so as not to attract predators with the smell of weak and easy prey. For this reason, puppies find it very difficult to get over the fear and go to the toilet while on a walk. They will happily play on their walk, but they hurry home to use their puppy pad. 

If you are aiming to train your puppy to toilet outside, you should have some treats in your pocket. Take the pup for a walk straight after a meal. As soon as he overcomes his fear and heroically relieves himself, you need to excitedly praise him, pet him and reward him with a treat. This will encourage him to carry on with such heroics

   Training the puppy to hold it

Up until five months of age, a puppy is not capable of holding it, he needs access to a toilet. After five months we can start expecting grown up behavior from our puppy when it comes to toilet matters.

If we have decided to train our dog to go to the toilet exclusively outside, we need to wake up early in the morning to check if there is pee or poop on the pad. If there is, the next morning we should wake up half an hour earlier. Do this until eventually we find the pad is clean. At this point we need to immediately take the dog outside and give him a treat as soon as he goes.

  For several days in a row, we will wake up at this early time until the puppy understands that his owner will always take him outside for a morning toilet and a treat. When the dog has been consistently waiting in the morning for a week or more, you can start to get up 10-15 minutes later every day and repeat the familiar ritual: outside-poop-treat. Eventually, we will have moved the morning ritual to a time that's more convenient for us, and the dog will have learned to hold it.

As well as the morning walks, we needed to take the dog out after every meal and just before bedtime.