By Saro Boghozian, Expert Family Dog Trainer
This is a topic that not many dog owners are clear about it and don’t feel comfortable to talk about it either.
Here are some suggestions that will help you ease off this basic yet very important issue.
In general, when you bring a puppy or even an adult dog to your home for the first time, you need to understand and follow some simple and important rules.
First thing first, don’t take them inside your home right away. Walk them around the block for 10 to 15 minutes until they are fully relieved.
Whether you have a yard or not, keep the dog on leash the entire time and introduce the house with your dog on leash. If possible, start from the yard. Let the dog to sniff anything it desires starting from the yard, if it needs to pee or mark territory it can do it there.
Once inside the house let the dog sniff the entire house and then bring it to the yard or take it out for another walk. The excitement of the new house and all the scents will stimulate the dog to need to relieve.
The goal here is not to let the dog to make a mistake. Prevention is always the key. You don’t need to excite the dog when introducing to the new house and the members. Keep it calm.
Take the dog out every hour or so and keep track of their eliminations. Record what they did and at what time for the first few days. This way you can better understand your dog’s bathroom routine. Once you find out their routine, start following it until the routine changes as the dog grows up.
If your dog or puppy is on kibble (dry food) you need to understand that they need more water intake than dogs on other diets. The reason they take in more water is to replace the moisture that is required to keep the dog hydrated and to be able to process the food. Therefore these dogs will need to eliminate more often than the dogs that are on raw or home-cooked diet. You can avoid accidents and improve your dog’s health simply by changing their diet.
One more thing, puppies and dogs need to eliminate any time before and after, eating, playing, sleeping and car rides. Yes, car rides stimulate your dog’s internal system and they need to be walked before and after any car ride no matter how short or long the ride is.
I hope these simple house-training tips will help you with your current and future dog house training issues. Also check out the following videos which I have created for some additional information and detailed explanations. Don’t forget to check out my channel for additional dog training videos.
