Welcome back!
As mentioned in Part 1 and Part 2 Flo is a trainee Irish Guide Dog for the Blind.
Fun fact: Guide dogs have to be trained to urinate and defecate ON COMMAND…
This is so that the dog’s owner can take the guide dog walking without the risk of the dog stopping during the walk to go in public. For a blind person, this would be a huge inconvenience since most public places now require you clean up the mess or face a penalty fine.
The command that we use to have the puppy go is “busy busy”.
Now I can say “go busy” rather than urinate and defecate and you’ll know what I mean.
How to potty train your puppy
House training a new puppy takes A LOT of time, patience and attention.
Time
Until a puppy is at least 12 weeks old, they have no control of their own bladder. Even up to 6 months they have very little control. For most bigger breeds it should take between 4 to 6 months to train the puppy to go outside. For some, (especially smaller breeds) it can take up to a year.
Patience
When you’re training a puppy to go busy outside, you need to actually take the puppy outside as often as it is likely to go. For very young puppies this could be as regular as every 20 minutes! As the puppy grows the amount of time between busy’s will increase. Sometimes you just have to stand out in the cold waiting if you want to avoid an indoor mess.
Attention
Puppies can be predictable if you pay attention to their behaviour. Usually puppies walk in circles sniffing the ground or floor moments before they go. If you can catch your puppy doing this as often as possible, you could have time to get the puppy outside to go busy and then praise them hysterically for doing it in the right place.
Tips
- If you don’t want your puppy to have an accident in certain places, such as the children’s play room or the carpet, simply do not allow the puppy to go in these areas. The smaller the puppy the smaller the area they should have access to. But if you are not present in the room, you have no way of training your puppy when it’s time to go.
- Using a puppy crate or pen is the best way to train your puppy to hold their bladders overnight. Their mother should have already taught them not to urinate in their sleeping area. Make sure to take them out to go urinate before you put them to bed. It's also a good idea to remove access to drinking water about an hour before they go to bed.
- It is a good idea to leave some newspapers, or something you don’t mind getting soiled, on the floor indoors in case the puppy suddenly needs to relieve itself. For the first 8 weeks, the whole area on which the puppy can walk should be covered. After 8 weeks, you can make this area smaller to start teaching the puppy that the newspapers are the surface on which you like them to relieve themselves. Start by removing the newspapers closest to the puppy’s bed. Gradually as the weeks go by, make the area smaller, removing the newspapers farthest from the door to the garden so that in the end the only newspapers are at the door. (These newspapers are for accidents only, preferably you will get the puppy outside on time) After 12 weeks, you can start putting some (preferably soiled) newspapers outside where you would like them to go busy.
- Always take your puppy outside to go busy immediately after they have been sleeping, eating or walking. Before the puppy is 12 weeks you should just carry the puppy outside to prevent an accident. Also bring them to go busy before you put them to bed and before you walk them, to avoid having to scoop their poop during your walk.
- When you take your puppy outside, the quickest way to get them to go is to do nothing. Do not interact with the puppy or talk to it. As soon as they have gone your attention will be reward enough for the puppy and this will speed up the process every time you go outside.
For Guide Dogs like Flo, as soon as she starts relieving herself I repeat the words “busy busy” until she’s done. - If you catch your puppy making a mess indoors, you can interrupt them and quickly take them outside before they finish. They won’t keep urinating once you’ve interrupted them with something like ‘no’ or ‘ah ah’.
- When your puppy makes a mess, clean the area thoroughly, so that there is no scent to remind the puppy that they had an accident there. The smell of their own excrement can trigger a puppy to relieve themselves. < This is useful knowledge for training them to go outside. From the moment the accident occurs to the moment the area is cleaned, try not to interact with the puppy. You do not want to reinforce or punish the behaviour. Do not make a fuss.
- If your puppy urinates out of excitement when greeting you, try taking your puppy outside before you greet it and toning down your greeting so it is less exciting or overwhelming.
- A frightened pup will not want to make themselves vulnerable by advertising its whereabouts with its excrement. For this reason, you should not punish your puppy for any accidents, as this will just make it harder to train.
- Never let your guard down! Whenever you think the puppy is house trained, your puppy will disappoint you.
Common Mistakes
- Over-feeding, too much variety or feeding at irregular times.
- Salty foods make them drink more therefore urinate more often.
- Punishing the puppy for its indoor accidents can make it scared of going in front of you.
- Cleaning up an accident with ammonia based cleaning products can leave a smell that encourages the puppy to have another accident.
- The puppy will not tell you when it needs to go out. You need to regularly take them out. The more often they relieve themselves in a place the more they will want to relieve themselves there. Avoid accidents.
- Leaving the back door open for the puppy to come and go makes it harder to establish the use of the garden as a routine.
- Leaving the puppy on its own too long forces it to go indoors developing a bad habit.
- Access to rugs or carpet - they are harder to clean and your puppy will prefer it to the harder surface.
