Potty training is a rite of passage for all puppy owners. It’s not the pretty part of owning a new puppy but it’s the one training none of us can ignore.
Sometimes we forget that our dogs don’t come pre-programmed to go to the bathroom outside. This is a habit we have to teach them.
The concept of potty training and what you need to do isn't hard. The time, the effort, and the emotional roller coaster, that’s what’s hard. And even if you do EVERYTHING right there's still going to be accidents and speed bumps along the way.
There are going to be times where you are going to wonder if you're ever going to get your life back. When are you going to be able to sit on your couch and snuggle with your puppy without constantly worrying if he has to go outside?
I promise you, that time will come. First, we have to get through the potty training process. There's no skipping it. Yeah just have to do it.
Though we can’t avoid it there are some ways to make it quicker and easier. Here I have broken down my Complete Process to Potty Training Your Puppy. By the end you will know exactly what to do when.
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You can press play below to listen to Episode 10 of Your New Puppy's Podcast here:
(A podcast is a radio show or an audio blog where you can listen to me talk instead of reading about it)
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I’ve also put together a 2 page cheat sheet for you with all the information and tips summarized. You can print it out and have it handy throughout the process. It also includes a potty training schedule to help you keep track of everything. The Potty Training Cheat Sheet and Schedule is free and yours to download and keep.
Complete Guide to Potty Training Your Puppy
I’ve created a guide for you that summarize the steps and tips I talk about in the episode. I’ve also created a one-page Puppy Tracker for you to use to keep track of your dog’s schedule, any accidents that happen and your wins!
Keeping track of these things will be extremely helpful if coordinating with multiple people in the household. It is also a great way to find patterns if things aren’t going smoothly.
In the simplest terms, we are teaching our dog, the proper place to go to the bathroom is outside. Potty training is such a common thing for us; we forget that it's not natural for our dogs.
What IS natural for our dogs is to not go in their sleeping area. That's why using a crate during potty training makes the whole process faster and more efficient. When used correctly, the crate will give him a safe and secure place when we can’t supervise which will greatly reduce accidents.
I talk more about crate training in Your New Puppy’s Podcast Episode 05.
I also do NOT use indoor potty pads at all. You don’t want your puppy to have any idea that he might be allowed to go to the bathroom inside.
I talk about why I don’t use potty pads in Your New Puppy’s Podcast Episode 09.
How long it takes will depend on your dog, on you, and your family. Some dogs just pick it up right away, some struggle. It will depend on how closely you will be able to stick to the process. It takes time and energy and sometimes we are going to drop the ball. What I can promise, is if you stick to this process you will see progress within a week.
Let’s go over exactly what to do, when.
When should you take your dog out?
We want to make sure we're getting him out before the accidents happen. We're not waiting for him to start circling the floor or to squat to pick him up and bring him out. We want to get him out before there's even the potential of an accident.
The rule of thumb is your puppy can physically hold it one hour for every month they are old. If they are a bigger breed you can add an hour. Overnight you add an additional 2-3 hours (I talk more about overnight below). This is the MAX we are not waiting until they definitely have to go to take them out.
The mantra I teach my YOUR Perfect Puppy students is “when in doubt, take your puppy out.” Which means even if there is a whisper of a thought that your puppy needs to go out you‘re taking your puppy outside.
Obvious times are first thing in the morning, right before bed, or if it’s simply been a few hours.
PRO TIP: If you are taking him out of his crate, be completely ready before you let him out. Your jacket's on, shoes are on, leash and bag in hand. All you're doing is clipping the leash on and walking up the door. If you let him out of his crate and you're like “oh my shoes are over by the front door” or “oh my jacket's over in the closet.” Too late, there's a puddle on the floor.
They will also need to go within 30 minutes of eating and 10 minutes of drinking.
You want to control the water as well as the food. Most of us are programmed to leave fresh water down all the time. I'm telling you not to do this. I want you to be able to keep track of every single sip of water your dog drinks.
You can offer you dog fresh water as often as you want, we are not keeping the water from him we are just controlling it. This is because as soon as they drink we know, within 10 minutes we have to take him out. It’s very easy to miss when he takes a drink and then there's an accident. This is something that surprises a lot of my puppy clients. Remember this is just during potty training.
Pro Tip: Change up the place you take him to go potty. For example, if you only bring your puppy into the backyard, he may start to think that your backyard is the only place he is supposed to go (instead of "outside" in general). Then if you take him anywhere (to a friend's house, board him, etc.) he will try to hold it until he gets to his "spot" and then an accident happens.
If you want him to only go in one spot in your yard, then always bring him to the one spot when you are in your yard. But you also need to take him out of your yard completely. You only have to do this once or twice a week, it doesn't take much.
The best time to do this is first thing in the morning when you know he has to go. Simple walk in a different direction on a walk or take him to the front yard instead of the back.
(Concerned about his vaccines? I talk about this in Your New Puppy's Podcast Episode 21)
What do you do when once you are outside?
You want to minimize the distractions, which is no easy feat. He's probably gonna want to play with every leave, stick, or blade of grass he finds. Ideally it's business first. Once he goes, then he can play. In fact, playing can be his reward.
A lot of people ask me about treats. The tricky thing with treats is you have to get the timing just right. You have to get that treat in their mouth as they're going to the bathroom. If we give them the reward when we come back in, they will see the reward for coming back inside, not going to the bathroom outside.
(Your New Puppy's Podcast Episode 26 is all about how timing is everything when you reward your puppy)
I've always had great success with just verbal praise during potty training. I praise the heck out of them while they are going to the bathroom. Do not underestimate the power of your attention. It's like gold to our puppies.
What do you do when you come back in?
Well, that depends. Did he go to the bathroom?
If the answer is ‘yes’ then fantastic! Now he gets some supervised free time. He gets some freedom around the house because he is empty and we can relax a little bit. Note I said supervise free time. He's still a puppy and potty accidents are far from the only trouble he can get into. Plus, you never know if there's still a little bit left in the tank.
If the answer is ‘no’, then he goes back into his crate. I know not fun, but just because he didn't go, doesn’t mean he's empty. He could have gotten distracted outside or he simple hasn’t made the connection to why you're out there.
Put him back in the crate, wait 10-15 minutes and then take him back outside. Repeat this until he does go potty. Remember he's a puppy, so what’s the most it’s going to last, an hour? Once he goes outside we reward the heck out of him and then it’s supervised free time!
Using the crate
- We've taken him outside.
- He finally went to the bathroom
- He's gotten some free time.
So now what do we do the rest of the day?
If you can supervise your puppy then whatever you want (I mean directly supervise, not, he's in the room with me, not, I can hear him over there, I mean eyes on dog). Ideally you are playing, training, and engaging with your puppy to get rid of all that puppy energy.
If you can't supervise then we use the crate. This prevents accidents and keeps them safe (just to name a few of the benefits of crate training). Give them a toy or bone to occupy them and let them chill.
Overnight
There is no way around it, you're going to lose some sleep. Your puppy simply can't hold it that long yet. I mentioned above that your puppy will be able to hold it a little longer overnight, so hopefully this won't last as long as the whole process.
To be clear, just because your puppy can hold it overnight, does not mean he can hold it for the same amount of time during the day. Their bodies function differently, they aren't moving around. and it's been a while since they ate or drank.
There are a couple of ways to get through the overnight potty breaks. If you have a couple adults in your household and one goes to bed late and then somebody else wakes up early, then you're golden.
But if you're the only adult, or if everybody's on the same sleep schedule, then we're going to have to make some temporary adjustments.You have a choice.
- Go to bed a later and get up earlier. So during the potty training, maybe we're getting a little less sleep.
- If you would rather keep your bedtime then set an alarm knowing that an overnight potty break is going to happen.
If you have a super young puppy (8-12 weeks) you may have to set your alarm for an overnight break no matter what because they won't be able to go much more than 4-5 hours.
The reason for setting an alarm is so you are up and taking your puppy out before they have the chance to whine. Once they realize if they whine in the middle of the night they get let out they may start to whine even if they don't have to go outside.
PRO TIP: Have everything ready the night before and set it right next to their crate. This way when the overnight potty break happens you will create as little stimulation as possible. Minimal lights, noise, and activity. It's all business and then back to bed. The last thing we want to do is make overnight breaks fun!
PRO TIP: No food or water 2 hours before bedtime.
Accidents
Accidents are going to happen. You can do everything right and they will happen. How you handle an accident is key to the potty training experience. If you do it correctly, it can actually speed up the process!
You will find yourself in one of two scenarios: you find the accident, or you see it happen. What you do depends on which of the two scenarios you find yourself in. Let's talk about each one.
You find the accident.
If you find the puddle or pile the only thing you can do is clean it up and do better next time (this is where the puppy schedule will help us. I'll talk about that in a second).
To clean it up we use a special enzyme cleaner because we want to remove the scent. Not just the smell that we smell but the smell the dog smells because dogs will naturally go in the same area that smells like a puppy toilet.
We can't punish our dog for something that we didn't see happen. This is all on us. Obviously if we didn't see it, we weren't supervising. The ONLY way to correct a behavior, including an accident, is to see it happen. So let's talk about that.
You catch him in the act.
If you see the sniff, the circling, or even the squat what do you do?
You startle him (maybe with a “eh, eh, eh” or clap) so he looks over to you, scoop him up and bring them outside. I don't care if you don't have your shoes on, I don't care if you don't have your jacket on, I don't care if you get pee on you. Potty training is a messy business. I wouldn't be telling you to do this if it wasn't important.
This is key. This is the place that your dog is gonna make the connection "we don’t do this here, we do this outside."
I have a lot of people hesitate to do this because they don't want to scoop their dog up while they're peeing. Get over that and just do it.
No matter which scenario we find ourselves in, the most important thing we do is figure out why it happened. When you are able to see why the accidents are happening you can learn from them and make adjustments.
This is where keeping a journal or schedule is important. You will start to see patterns. Maybe accidents happen on Saturdays when your schedule is different. Or maybe they are happening right when the kids get home from school. Or you realize you aren't supervising your puppy as closely as you should.
This is why, included with the free cheat sheet below I have given you a one page schedule with a section to keep track of these accidents so we can learn from them.
Free Cheat Sheet
The free Potty Training Cheat Sheet below summarizes all of the information and tips I went over above. There is also a puppy schedule for you to keep track of food, potty breaks, accidents and wins!
Keeping a journal or calendar will help you see patterns and understand when your puppy eats, goes potty, and when accidents happen. This is essential when you have multiple people in the house hold and need to coordinate. You also want to keep track when you have a big win (no accidents today! he went to the back door!). Tracking your even little wins will remind you of how far you've come when you have a set back or hit a bump.
Complete Guide to Potty Training Your Puppy
I’ve created a guide for you that summarize the steps and tips I talk about in the episode. I’ve also created a one-page Puppy Tracker for you to use to keep track of your dog’s schedule, any accidents that happen and your successes.
Keeping track of these things will be extremely helpful if coordinating with multiple people in the household. It is also a great way to find patterns if things aren’t going smoothly.
Wrap up
There will be a time that you'll be sitting on the couch at night watching TV with your dog at your feet and you're going to be like, huh, remember that time, the only thing we thought about was does the dog have to go outside?
It will happen, I promise you. Potty training is a rite of passage. Every single puppy owner goes through it. It's one of those things that if you ever get another puppy, you're going to forget how hard it was until its happening again.
Hugs and Belly Rubs!
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