You adopted a puppy and you are worried, where will he do his business? Pay attention to the advice on how to teach a dog to go to the bathroom? It is your responsibility to create habits in your pet, patience and perseverance are the keys to success.
How to teach a dog to go to the bathroom?
One of the most frequent questions that arise after adopting a puppy is precisely how to potty train a dog at the right time, and it is much more complicated when it comes to an adult dog.
Over time, people have managed to achieve good habits in their pets, from techniques based on reward and punishment (not recommended) to commercial or homemade repellents to scare their dogs away from prohibited places to relieve themselves in House.
The most important thing is to be clear that the education of your dog depends on you. In this sense, you must patiently dedicate the necessary time so that it gets used to being disciplined and your house does not become a mine of animal waste.
Considerations regarding how to teach a dog to go to the bathroom
Before starting a training process to teach your pet where to relieve himself, it is important to take into consideration certain conditions that will determine how complicated it can be to achieve the objectives set, as well as adapt strategies based on the particularities of each case. .
How far can we demand?
From the third week of life and approximately until the eighth, is when the puppies learn to relieve themselves without the intervention of their mother, since while they are babies, she swallows their waste to keep them free of impurities and instinctively prevent them from being perceived by their predators (behavior inherited from wolves)
This is how after 8 weeks of birth is when a dog can recognize the substrates to meet its needs.
How to teach a dog to go to the bathroom through modeling?
In learning by modeling, dogs can acquire good or bad habits during their stay at home. If you have your puppy's parents or one of them and they are used to doing their business in the place designated for it, it will be much easier to educate your pet because through smell and observation they will practically adopt the same routine.
How to teach a dog to go to the bathroom from the origin of the dog you adopted?
Not all dogs are lucky enough to be born and grow up in healthy conditions. Both physically and psychologically, many suffer from situations that can cause trauma and any change affects them significantly.
In cases of pets from the street that have been subjected to mistreatment or you acquire them in public kennels, educating them to go to the bathroom does not represent the same challenge as teaching a puppy born and lovingly raised by a human family.
How to train a dog to go to the bathroom if he has to spend a lot of time alone at home?
Undoubtedly, it is essential to have a schedule to program a routine for your pet, since it may depend on your presence that a dog satisfies its physiological needs (for example, to take it out to the park or the patio)
Do you offer your dog a balanced diet?
Definitely, your dog's urine and feces depend directly on his diet. In it there are factors that determine the quality and quantity of your waste, so you must take care of what you eat, at what times and how many portions a day.
Tips on how to train a dog to go to the bathroom in one place
First of all, you must define what is most convenient for your rhythm of life, how long you spend away from home and what spaces you have inside and outside your home ready for your dog to do his physiological needs. This will help you design the best and most convenient plan to train your pet.
Here are some best practices to teach you how to:how to train a dog to go to the bathroom? and thus avoid inconveniences in the future. Turn this challenge into an opportunity to create good habits in your puppy and achieve a better coexistence.
the dog pen
Having a designated space to place your dog when you leave the house is essential, especially while it is completing the learning process. This place will also be used to relieve yourself, so it must be spacious and located in a quiet area (if it is a much better room)
The hours of urination
The ideal times to guide where your puppy should relieve himself are usually after: sleeping, eating and playing or doing some physical activity.
keep the same routines
Following the recommendations of any dog training, if you follow the same schedule for each of the activities, the dog will more easily understand the message and any sign of stress generated will disappear.
Rewards and punishments
During the learning process of how to teach a dog to go to the bathroom, rewards have been, are and will be the best tool to strengthen positive attitudes.
When your pet makes his stools in the right place, recognize his success in a timely manner and if he makes a mistake, never choose to punish him as it can be counterproductive. Also, remember that everything depends on the person and if he does not use the bathroom it is because we did not anticipate to guide him.
Eliminate prohibited toilets
When your friend uses an inappropriate place to dispose of their urination, make sure to thoroughly clean the area (use natural dog repellants if possible), as they will instinctively return, guided by smell, to repeat the action.
Do not leave access to food throughout the day
To create periodicity in the times that your puppy needs to go to the bathroom, establish a fixed time to give him food and leave the dish for a certain time (around 20 minutes). Do not forget that patience is essential in this process and should not cause stress to the dog and neither to its owner.
go to the vet
The respective vaccines for puppies must be given during the first months of life. Take advantage of a visit to your trusted veterinarian to validate the health status of your pet and clarify any questions regarding the process of educating him to go to the bathroom.
How to teach a dog to go to the bathroom as a puppy?
Newspapers have always been a commonly used option for puppies to relieve themselves inside the house, because their frequency to go to the bathroom is usually irregular. In this sense, below, we present how to potty train a puppy step.
Puppy Pen Preparation
While your pet is without your supervision, it must remain in a properly defined room or space, where you must place everything it needs (bed, water, food, and toys) separated from an area with newspapers that will serve as a bathroom.
Instead of the newspaper you can use pads for dogs, artificial grass or any other material that is within your reach.
Anticipate when your puppy wants to urinate
In addition to the typical times when your puppy should feel like eliminating (in the morning, after eating, or playing), you should be attentive to the body signs that indicate what his need is (learn to read your pet's language).
Some examples can be:
• Walk in circles
• Walks around the room anxiously
• Sniffs around your previous stools
• Sometimes they may cry
Once you identify what do you want to do? Take him immediately to the place designated as a bathroom and if he succeeds, reward him with caresses or a treat. If, on the other hand, they make a mistake, breathe, fill yourself with patience and give them another chance. Never scold or punish him.
Start shrinking the area of the newspaper
As the days go by it will be easy to discover the area that your dog commonly uses. Once you identify it, you can gradually reduce the space by removing newspapers little by little.
What happens if my puppy does not learn?
The key: Patience and Perseverance. Do not stop insisting and give him more opportunities, one of the dog characteristics In general, it is that as individuals they have their own personality and learning capacity, so it can take up to 1 year to learn the lesson.
What if I have punished my dog and now he is afraid?
If unfortunately you reached the limit and punished your pet, you should keep in mind that you did not achieve anything positive, on the contrary, he may be unwilling and reluctant to continue learning, simply become rebellious.
We recommend that you work hard to regain his trust, you can spend more time with him, play with him and reward his successes in a timely manner to start from the beginning.
Why not use the newspaper to punish a dog?
Punishing a dog under no concept or modality generates good results. Using the newspaper as a punishment stick (hitting the dog or shaking it against the floor to intimidate it with noise) never produces benefits.
Contrary to what people who use this method think, this evil technique can traumatize your puppy, developing insecurity, fear and distrust that can finally turn into defensive aggressiveness.
Positive reinforcement is always the best option, the one that generates the expected results. For this reason, forget the newspaper as an instrument of obedience and use it as a toilet or for what it was designed for (being informed)
How to eliminate prohibited toilets to teach a dog to relieve himself where he should?
It is normal that there are accidents during the process of how to teach your dog to go to the bathroom, but you must take into account that your puppy is likely to be guided by smell to repeat the action in the same place.
That is why you must clean the prohibited area very well, preferably with a dog repellent (commercial or homemade) and avoid the use of enzymatic detergents such as bleach as much as possible, since, like pet urine, it contains ammonia and this it can stimulate them to pee over the area we want to protect.
The newspaper cannot replace the park
The healthiest thing for a dog is to take regular walks to relieve himself outdoors, however, we teach him to use the newspaper at home for those specific cases in which we cannot go outside. Especially during his first 3 months of life in which he must complete his respective doses of vaccines.
Why is it important to walk the puppy after vaccination?
First of all, because it is a pet, your dog needs to socialize. He must relate in harmony with other dogs, animals and even with other people.
It does not necessarily have to be docile to extreme approaches (they can have a distant character) but it must perfectly tolerate their interaction with the environment in which they develop, free of tensions that can stress them out.
Secondly, but not less importantly, your puppy can get used to performing his needs only and exclusively in newspapers, resulting in not being able to eliminate in the street and enslaving us to cleanliness at home.
Importance of picking up dog feces on the street
It is the responsibility of people to take their dogs outside, both to take a walk and exercise as well as to do their physiological needs.
It is not enough to be interested in how to teach a dog to go to the bathroom, it is also necessary to take care of collecting its feces. Both at home and on the street, you must be responsible and consider the following premises:
- Their daily stools are approximately 300 grams, these dry, disintegrate and mix in the environment, and can end up in food that is eaten on public roads or we can breathe them, representing a risk of infectious diseases.
- During the process of decomposition of feces, people are exposed to some parasites, worms, eggs or larvae of worms, harmful to their intestinal system.
- Some of these parasites can cause severe eye damage in young children.
- Socially it is considered a lack of respect not to pick up your pet's feces on public roads. It is certainly very unpleasant to trip over dog excrement in the street, not only because of its unpleasant smell but also because of how uncomfortable it is to step on it.