Meet Jethro!! Newest foster dog extraordinaire!

Jethro is a nearly 10 week old Collie/German Shorthaired Pointer cross who is handsome as can be! He is a total mush and is getting more confident each and everyday!

With a 10 week old puppy comes lack of sleep so posts for the next few weeks may be shorter than typical because … well if Jethro is going to get me up at 6 or 7 am, I cannot stay up until 3am writing.

Onto the topic for today. I know most of my readers have adult dogs but you know there may come a time when you have to get back to the basics with either a new dog or a puppy.

Tena’s Tips for Successful Housetraining

In general, it is my goal that Jethro not have any opportunities to rehearse unwanted potty behaviors. House training is about building a habit and preference for pottying outside. The more accidents inside, the more of a preference he may start to build for pottying in the comfort of the house; so prevention is really important. Most accidents are human error, not puppy mistakes. I think it’s important for humans to be accountable for their mistakes and not to blame or get frustrated with puppy. I know with Rio he had a grand total of 2.5 accident and was pretty reliable within about a month. Each one of his accidents were my fault–I learned from them and moved on. Here are the basic ideas under which I operate to house train puppies…

KNOW YOUR PUPPY’S POTTY DANCE–Before one can prevent an accident, one must be able to tell the signs of impending potty. I learned that the hard way. Jethro’s potty signals were very different from Rio’s in that his sniffing was more widespread and generalized compared to Rio’s. So while Jethro was sniffing around, I didn’t take that as a potty signal (since he’d just peed 65 minutes prior) because it was very generalized sniffing that wasn’t terribly focused. Well, after he started to pee on the floor, I interrupted it and he finished outside but the definitely taught me his potty signals. Once I knew what to look for, I was able to respond to those signals by taking him outside and rewarding him.

CONSTANT SUPERVISION–Really, constant. If you cannot be focusing on the dog, he/she should be crated (or if a dog is a little bit older or reliable, on a tether). This one is really important… even if you know the potty dance, if you aren’t supervising well enough you won’t see the dance and puppy will have practiced an undesired behavior. What this means, for me, is that if I’m intently watching a TV show, I’m writing a blog, I am reading a book, cooking dinner, taking a shower, or talking on the phone (intently), puppy would be chilling in the crate since he’s much less likely to have an accident in his crate.

CREATE A SCHEDULE–By getting the pup on a very predictable schedule, they learn that there are many opportunities to go outside to potty and are more likely to start to “hold it” as they get bigger. Another benefit to starting a schedule is that when you feed at set times, the puppy is out to play/get drinks at set times you are more able to predict when the puppy may have to go. Plus it’s very easy to methodically change the schedule as the puppy ages and is capable of controlling their bladder for longer amounts of time. When there is a predictable schedule, humans are proactive by taking the pup out regularly to potty outside before they even try to potty inside.

REWARD WHAT YOU WANT–I have a pink bathrobe with duckies on it hanging by the front door because it’s easier to slip on then a coat at 4 am when I’m groggy. Stuffed in both pockets are a two handfuls of puppy kibble so that when he potties outside, I’m able to heavily reward that behavior outside so it’s more likely to happen in the future. I really do not think it is advisable punish a puppy who has an accident for a wide number of reasons. First of all, a puppy having an accident is almost exclusively human error and secondly there is real risk of teaching the dog to not potty in front of you (either inside or outside). What this creates is a puppy who will sneak away to pee in some corner of the house (just as long as the handler isn’t there) or they will simply not potty in front of the handler, even when on a walk. The last thing a handler wants is a puppy who refuses to potty in front of them but who feels safe sneaking off to a quiet place in the house to potty.

There are a few other tips but I am falling asleep as I type this so it’ll have to be done. What would YOU add to the list?