Housetraining methods For Dogs

Teach your dog to be housetrained by using easy methods and your dog's instincts.

housetraining dog tips Potty training your dog is no doubt an essential for you and your dog to live in harmony together.

Nobody likes to be surprised by a smelly dog mess. It can spoil the flooring in your home, it can be difficult to clean up and frankly it’s just plain disgusting.

See the dog housetraining methods below are useful whether you're just starting to potty train your dog or you've been working on it for a while.

When you teach your dog to use the bathroom outside, you’ll be housetraining him by doing three main things: preventing him from messing in the house, associating the behavior of using the bathroom with a specific word and rewarding him when he exhibits the correct behavior (i.e. he goes outside to do his business.)

Using Your Dog's Natural Instincts for Housetraining

These housetraining tips use your dog’s natural instincts to teach him to do the right thing. In this case, you are using your dog’s instincts to keep his living area clean.

It is against your dog’s instincts to mess in his own area. He sees his living space as a clean place and he won’t mess there. So, when you housebreak your dog, it means that he thinks (like you) that the inside of your home should be a clean place free from waste.

Your dog will view your entire home as a clean place and he will look upon messing in the house as a very undesirable behavior. From the moment he sees your house as his living space, it will be unthinkable for him to mess on your hardwood floors or expensive carpeting.

Dog Housetraining Tip One - Let Your Dog Get the Right Idea

housetraining dog More often than not, our dogs want to please us, but they just don’t know what we want from them. The first part of potty training is to give your dog the opportunity to do the right thing from the beginning.

To prevent your dog from messing in the house, you need to give him opportunities to go potty outside throughout the day. This will give your dog plenty of chances to do the correct behavior all on his own.

So, make sure to give your dog periodic potty breaks. If your dog is alone all day while you work, you may want to start this on the weekend and then break away whenever you can during the work day to let your dog out.

Using this in conjunction with the other methods listed. And, over time, make the potty breaks further and further apart until you and your dog get into a schedule that fits your lifestyle. Once they learn to hold it, most dogs can go about 6-8 hours between potty breaks. Dogs with specific health conditions may have different needs.

The fact is, most people work about 8 hours each day, and then maybe they hit a happy hour, hang out with friends after work and then fight traffic to get home. If you need to be away from your home for more than 8 hours daily, you may want to consider hiring a dog walker during the day so that your dog can have frequent bathroom opportunities. Stretching any more than 8 hours between your dog’s potty breaks is definitely pushing your dog’s ability to stick to his housebreaking. Try holding your bathroom breaks to once every 8 hours and you’ll see that you’re asking your pooch to do something that is nearly impossible.

We’d also like to mention the effectiveness of using a dog door. If you own your home or if you rent from a flexible landlord, consider installing a dog door connecting your home to your (fenced) yard. Dogs easily get the hang of using a dog door and you don’t have the threat of an accident indoors just because you can’t get home in time to walk your dog. A dog door also gives your dog added freedom when you are home so he may go in and out as he pleases.

Housebreaking Continued at Dog Training Housebreaking Tips