Painless Housebreaking With The Help Of A Dog Crate

Once a family has a new puppy, one of the first issues faced is housebreaking.

Housebreaking basically teaches your puppy that your house is his den, and in the wild, pups would normally leave the den in order to defecate because it’s natural for dogs to want to relieve themselves away from their home. Reasons for that include the fact that it keeps potentially dangerous animals from tracking them to their homes and it keeps the home in proper health with natural good hygiene.

Your puppy may need a little help in understanding the concept of the home as a den, so start smaller and give him a real den to work from. Crating a puppy helps him learn the process of housebreaking. To ensure your puppy is successful in the housebreaking process, follow these suggestions:

• Feed your puppy on a schedule.
• Take him outside for a walk a few minutes after eating every meal (about 20 minutes should do it.) If you want to encourage your puppy to relieve himself in a particular spot, take some of his previous droppings and place it there.
• When he relieves himself, give him lots of praise! Good boy! Some people also start to try to teach their puppies commands to associate with relieving themselves like “pee pee” or “poops and potties.” It may sound ridiculous, but when it’s freezing rain outside, you’ll be happy your dog associates the command with the function.
• When you bring him back inside, let him have free run of the house to play and spend social time with the family.
• Put him in his crate when it’s time for bed.
• Take him out promptly in the morning so he’s not in his crate longer than six hours.

Puppies cannot go more than six hours without going to the bathroom, so if you can’t get him out of his crate during the day in less than six hours, you might have to consider confining him to a small room (a kitchen or mud room usually works) and keeping papers out on the floor. Or you can crate him and have someone visit in the middle of the day to let him go outside.

Most puppies tend to grow very fond of their crates, especially if you make it homey with a soft bottom bedding and some cuddly toys. Even once your dog is housebroken, he will likely still use his crate as his bed for sleep or to go to when he’s frighten (during thunderstorms). The dog crate provides your puppy with a feeling of security as well as a way of assisting with housebreaking.

Next article: Dog Crate Training For Puppies And Dogs