Essays · The first five months
It is not about the puppy learning a rule. It is about never once giving them the opportunity, for long enough that the habit sets.
About five minutes
House training goes badly for one reason in almost every case. The puppy is being given opportunities to get it wrong, and every one of those builds the habit you are trying to avoid.
The puppy is not slow. The schedule is loose.
Dogs develop preferences for surfaces and locations. A puppy who has toileted on carpet six times has a developing carpet preference, and you are now working against a habit rather than a gap in knowledge.
So the job is not teaching. The job is preventing every single accident for long enough that outside becomes the only thing they have ever done.
Zero accidents for three weeks does more than three months of catching them in the act.
Out first thing. Out after every meal. Out after every nap. Out after every play session. Out every forty five minutes otherwise for a young puppy, stretching as they get older.
That is a lot of trips and it is the entire method. Most failed house training is a household that went every couple of hours.
Go out with them. Do not put the puppy out and watch through the window, because you need to know whether they actually went, and you need to pay them the moment they finish.
Pay outside, immediately, with food. Not praise when you come back in. The gap destroys the association.
The puppy is either directly supervised, on a lead attached to you, or in a crate or pen. Those three states, always, for several weeks.
A puppy loose in a room while you look at your phone is a puppy about to have an accident, and the accident is your schedule's fault rather than theirs.
Say nothing. Do not react at all. Clean it with an enzymatic cleaner, because normal cleaners leave a scent marker that says this is the spot.
Never do the thing with the nose. It teaches a puppy that toileting near people is dangerous, which produces a dog who hides to go, behind the sofa, which is far harder to solve than what you started with.
Under twelve weeks, one or two trips. Set an alarm rather than waiting to be woken, because a puppy who has to make noise to get out has learned that noise works.
Out, toilet, straight back in, no talking. Boring.
Fairly common and it panics people.
Usually one of three things. Freedom expanded too fast, so the puppy has rooms they were never taught. A urinary tract infection, which is worth ruling out before training anything. Or marking, which is a different behaviour with a different fix.
Shrink the space back for two weeks and most of it resolves without any argument.
Reliable by four to six months with a tight schedule. Puppies from poor conditions, who had to soil where they slept, can take considerably longer and it is worth knowing that going in.
A puppy still having regular accidents at eight months needs a vet before a trainer.
If you would rather just ask someone
Tell us the age, what is happening, and what you have already tried. You will get a straight answer about what we would do, whether or not that involves us.
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