Puppy potty training is the bane of many new dog parents. That is why there are so many tutorials on how to housetrain a dog, with promises of how it can be simple and effortless.
The fact though, is that potty training requires time, patience, and consistency. How simple or difficult it is, will depend on our dog’s temperament and our own temperament.
Some dog breeds such as the Shiba Inu, are naturally clean and are relatively easy to housebreak. My Shiba was housebroken when we first got him at 10 weeks old.
Shiba Sephy does not even like to eliminate in our backyard. Instead, he prefers to wait until we go for a walk. In contrast, my second dog (a Siberian Husky), was more difficult to housetrain because she did not mind frolicking close to her own waste products.
It took a few weeks to housetrain her.
Puppy potty training also depends a lot on us. If we are naturally calm, consistent, and patient, housebreaking will seem easier and require less work.
Whatever the case, always remember that we can successfully housetrain a physically healthy dog, at whatever age (after the weaning off process), no matter the history.
And that is a potty training fact!
1. Set Up a Schedule
Puppy potty training begins, by setting up a schedule. Initially, we want to bring our dog out often, and reduce the chances of her making mistakes inside the house.
I observe my puppy closely, and try to identify patterns in her potty behavior. For example, she usually has to go when she wakes up, and after a bit of vigorous play. Therefore, I took her out after nap-time and after every 10-15 minutes of play. Different dogs may have different patterns depending on size, temperament, routine, and more.
I stop giving her water about 2-3 hours before sleep time, and take her out right before I crate her for the night. If I need to reward her during that time, I only use moist dog treats such as boiled chicken, so that she does not get thirsty from them.
Fact – Dogs learn through a process called conditioning. They repeat behaviors that get them good results and stop behaviors that get them bad results.
The more we reward a puppy for eliminating outside, the more she will repeat that behavior. When my puppy does her business in the backyard, I mark that behavior (Yes!). Once she finishes, I treat her with something special that she only gets for potty success, and give her some good affection. Then, I reward her more with play-time and her favorite activities.
Similarly, the more a puppy practices eliminating inside, on her own, the more she will go in the house. After all, it is convenient and nobody is teaching her that it is inappropriate behavior.
Therefore, we want to not only maximize the number of successes, but also minimize the number of mistakes. In this way, our puppy will learn that doing her business outside is extremely rewarding and fun. On the other hand, when she does it inside, she consistently gets interrupted and taken outside.
Myth – My dog cannot be housetrained because she comes from a stubborn breed, she is too stupid, she is too dominant, she doesn’t listen to me, she is too old, etc.
Any physically healthy dog can be housetrained. The key to potty training is patience and consistency. Always be around to supervise our puppy when she is inside. If I do not have the time to supervise, then I crate my puppy or put her in a long-term enclosure with puppy pads.
Myth: Screaming and hitting the dog will show her that I am boss and make her stop pottying inside the house.
Screaming and hitting a dog does not work well, and usually makes things worse. How well do you learn when somebody is screaming at you, or hitting you? It is the same way for a dog, especially a puppy.
The fastest way to housebreak our puppy, is to remain calm, and consistently let her know that going inside is inappropriate (Ack, ack), and going outside is appropriate (Yes).
2. Prevent Potty Mistakes
There are three ways to prevent mistakes inside the house:
a) Be there to supervise.
When our puppy shows signs that she has to go potty, take her outside right away. If I do not catch my puppy in time and she starts to do her business, then I interrupt her with a no-mark (Ack, ack) and take her outside.
Myth – I can potty train my puppy by rubbing her nose in it after the fact. She always looks sheepish and puts her head down when I shout at her. She knows she has done something wrong.
Dogs will only learn when we catch them in the act.
If we are not around and our dog makes a mistake, then we have missed a learning opportunity. All we can do is clean up the mess and move on. It is true that a dog may look sheepish when we shout at her after the fact. This is because she knows that we are upset, so she uses submissive gestures (e.g. putting her head down) to try and appease us.
The dog does not know what particular event has caused our anger, but just that we are angry. Shouting and rubbing a dog’s nose in her own waste does not teach her anything. All it does is confuse our dog, as well as create stress and fear. This can make things worse by causing submissive urination.
b) Crate train our dog.
Dogs do not generally like to soil where they sleep. Keeping our puppy in a crate can discourage her from pottying because she does not want to soil her sleeping area.
When I got my first dog, I was a bit concerned about crating him. Here is what the Humane Society of the United States and the American Dog Trainer’s Network have to say about crate training
Myth – A crate will magically keep my dog from pottying for any period of time.
The crate is not some magical cure. A crate discourages a dog from eliminating, but if a dog absolutely has to go, she has to go.
Keeping a puppy for too long in a crate, will force her to potty in the crate, possibly traumatize her, and greatly set back our potty training program.
The maximum crate time is dependent on the age of our puppy.
| Age | Maximum time in crate |
|---|---|
| 8–10 weeks | 30–60 minutes |
| 11–14 weeks | 1–3 hours |
| 15–16 weeks | 3–4 hours |
| 17+ weeks | 4–5 hours |
Maximum crate time from ASPCA Weekend Crate Training.
Note – this is just a general guideline for the maximum crate time. I usually take my puppy outside more frequently than that. I take her out as soon as she wakes up, and right after any heavy activity.
At night, I crate my dogs in the bedroom. Keeping our dogs with us in the bedroom will help with the bonding process, and show them that they are part of the pack.
When puppies are really young, they may not be able to hold their bladder throughout the night. It may be necessary to make an extra trip outside at night, or really early in the morning. Once they get a bit older though, this will no longer be necessary.
Some puppies, e.g. pet store puppies, may already be conditioned to eliminate in their crate, because they are kept in there for overly long periods of time. In such cases, a crate will no longer be a deterrent to potty behavior.
c) Put our dog in a long-term enclosure.
If I will be away for a long period of time, I put my puppy in a long-term enclosure. This can be a secure puppy pen, or a secure and safe room (e.g. kitchen).
Make sure there is nothing dangerous in the enclosure that our puppy can destroy and swallow. Put bedding, a water bowl, some puppy pads, safe chew toys, and safe food toys, in the enclosure. Put the pads in a corner as far away from the bedding as possible.
Instead of puppy pads, we may also use an indoor grass system.
However, some dogs may not like standing on or eliminating on the indoor grass surface. Just using regular sod or grass did not work well for me because of drainage issues. The sod gets smelly very quickly because there isn’t anywhere for the pee to go.
When I tried using sod, I had to change it every other day, or my puppy refused to go onto it. This ended up being a lot more work than just using puppy pads.
Myth – We cannot train a dog to potty outside as well as on puppy pads. She will get confused and not know what to do.
Yes, it is true that if we can be around most of the time to supervise, it is better not to let a puppy do her business in the house at all.
However, if we will be away for long periods of time, if our dog has separation anxiety issues (which may cause her to need to eliminate when we leave), or if there are other medical issues (surgery) that make frequent trips outside unfeasible, then it is perfectly fine to train a dog to both potty on pads, as well as outside.
Reward a puppy for going on his pads, and reward a puppy a lot more for going outside.
3. Clean Away Mistakes Properly
During the housetraining process, there will be some mistakes. When that happens, I calmly no-mark my puppy (Ack, ack) and take her outside. Once we are outside, I praise and reward her if she continues with her business.
Then, I leave my puppy in our fully enclosed and puppy-safe backyard, come in, and clean up the mess. Cleaning up messes in front of a puppy may sometimes cause her to mimic our behavior, and engage in eating her own poop. In her mind, she is only helping to clean out the den.
Use a cleaner that is made especially for pets. A popular pet odor cleaner is Nature’s Miracle.
Do not use ammonia based cleaners as the ammonia odor, which resembles urine, may attract our dog to urinate in the area.
4. Make Sure the Mistakes Are Potty Mistakes
Not all indoor urination is the result of housetraining mistakes. Other reasons for indoor urination include:
- Submissive or excitement urination.
- Medical issues, e.g. urinary tract infection.
- Marking objects or territory.
- Stress or anxiety, which results from being alone or other psychological issues.
I have a new 4 month old siberian husky named bolt. He is very energetic and smart with my training. But i really have trouble with teaching him how to potty. The previous owner only put him in a cage and never lets him outside, so he never learn how to housebreak. He often poops on the floor, its his favorite spot. I even took him for a walk in the morning and he still doesnt poop until we enter the house. I caught him right in act sometimes and immediately make him smell his poop and punish him with my high NO voice. I have only been with him for 3 days but im wondering have i been doing the right thing? Will this work?
I always leave him in the cage whenever i leave. I only let him out when i take him to walk and play
What seems to work for my Sibes-
1. When Sibe puppy makes a mistake, I calmly no-mark her (say Ack-ack) so that she knows it is an undesirable behavior.
2. Then I interrupt her and take her outside calmly.
3. Usually she will continue with her business outside, so I reward her very well with food and a very fun game.
4. I come in alone and clean up the mess.
In this way, she learns that doing her potty outside = lots of rewards, while doing her potty inside just means she gets interrupted and taken outside. She quickly got very motivated to let me know when she needed to go.
Other things that help with potty training my Sibes-
1. Putting them on a fixed schedule.
2. Close supervision. We want to be there to consistently prevent mistakes, and maximize successes.
I describe more of what I did in the article above.
Should Use Cage For 8 week Lab Puppy ?
It depends on how we go about crate training the puppy. I always go slowly and make training sessions positive and rewarding. In this way, my dogs associate their crate with a calm, safe place, that they can go to to eat and rest.
More on crate training.
However, as with anything else, mistakes can occur or equipment can be misused.
Problems can arise when we force our dog to stay in the crate (e.g. for punishment) or keep a puppy in there for overly long periods of time. Sometimes, dogs are only crated when nobody is home, which causes them to associate crate time with being alone. All of these things can create negative associations with the crate, that can then lead to stress, anxiety, and fear.
Hi, my family just recently got a 4 month old puppy from some friends that had to move, his name is Bolt and he is a white husky, and we knew it would be hard for us to train him because he was with the other family for 2 months and they had not taken very good care of potty training him. We are following your advice and he like to potty in the living room and in front of the bathroom and will go to the bathroom as soon as 15 minutes or more after he has already gone…what should we do? and is it okay to cage him for punishment? ,Thanks so much
Congratulations on your new puppy!
When I catch my Sibe puppy making a mistake, I just calmly no-mark her (Ack-ack), interrupt her, and bring her outside. If she continues to do her business outside, I praise her very well, and reward her with treats, and a very fun game. Then, I come back in (alone) and clean up the mess.
In terms of potty frequency, young puppies may have to go more often because their bladders are not fully developed. My Sibe puppy also needed to go more frequently after she does some rigorous activity, e.g. play, run around, walks, etc. How often does Bolt need to potty? Has he been to the vet for a checkup and vaccination shots?
As for the crate/cage, I generally only want my dog to associate it with positive experiences. This makes her like going into her crate, which she does at night and sometimes during the day to eat. The crate is her safe and peaceful spot where she goes to sleep, rest, and sometimes eat while thinking great thoughts. 😀
For timeouts, I put my dog briefly in the laundry room. But only for more serious offenses.
I’m getting a shichon puppy in about 2 weeks and I’m trying to get prepared for him. I have 2 small children and want to avoid any accidents in the house if possible. What is the best way to go about this? Thanks in advance for your help.
Congratulations on your upcoming new puppy.
As for potty training, I think the most important aspect is supervision. When Lara was a puppy, she was doing so well with her potty lessons that I slacked off on the supervision slightly (e.g. go on brief bathroom breaks without putting her in her enclosure). As soon as I started relaxing things, she started making lots of mistakes.
After this, I made sure to always put her in her enclosure even if I will only be gone for 30 seconds. Puppy can do lots in 30 seconds. 😀
My 12 week old male husky, when placed in an enclosure with training pads… tends to tear up the pad during the day… How can I teach/keep him from doing this??
With Lara, I first started training her to stay in the enclosure when I am home and can supervise. When she starts to get restless and goes to bite her pads, I would no-mark and then get her to chew on her toys instead. If she keeps going back to the pad, then I just put her in the backyard, and she doesn’t get to be with people or my other dogs for a while.
Other things that seem to help-
1. I used a pad holder so that the pad stays in one place. Motion often gets a puppy excited, and she will want to pounce and chase it.
2. I make sure she is very well exercised before I leave.
3. I give her many safe chew toys to play with. She got a lot of frozen kongs during puppyhood.
Another possibility is to use something less-chewable. With Shania, I tried using sod but ran into drainage issues. Some people have success with those artificial-grass potty systems. However, I have not tried using them, so I do not know how well they work.
Hi ShibaShake,
Thank you for your informative articles. I am thinking about adopting a Shiba from a local rescue – about 2 years old. The foster home says that it has been housebroken and will wait for 8-9 hours before going potty. I don’t think this is acceptable and plan on bringing it out every 3-4 hours for potty.
However, I am also wondering if I could train the Shiba to use my toilet or go in my bathtub (I am thinking of building steps for it to go). I would like to teach my Shiba to go in my bathtub as and when it wants. If so, who can I talk to or where can I read up on it? I would like to figure out how to use positive reinforcement to teach it that technique.
I am not asking out of laziness – I still plan on bringing my Shiba out 3-4 times a day. I simply think it’s unphysiological to make my Shiba hold it in while I am not at home.
Thank you.
-Jonathan
With Sephy, he is very particular about where he does his business. He most prefers to go during his walks and will usually even disdain using the backyard. Even when he goes outside, he picks special spots that presumably have the right set of smells. He only goes in the backyard when he absolutely needs to.
The bathtub has a slippery and cold surface that dogs often do not like. My dogs may smell the tub but they do not willingly go in there on their own.
Sephy has free access to the backyard whenever he wants. He may sometimes go outside to sun himself, but he does not pee in there very often (his choice). When you gotta go, you gotta go, but when you don’t gotta go, then you don’t gotta go. 😀
My shiba inu is 9 months old. I was wondering if you have any advice on how to get him to go to the bathroom in our yard. Right now, he will only go if we take him for a walk.
Yeah, Sephy is the same way. I think it is a pretty common Shiba trait.
When he really has to go though, he will go in the backyard, so I don’t think any harm comes from it. I just walk him daily and make sure he has many chances to relieve himself. 😀
Hi Shibashake,
We took our 19week shiba puppy to our basement where she loves to play. She hasn’t had an accident for a while and always let’s us know if she has to go pee. When she layed down on the floor to chew on her chew toy, she peed while laying down! It just didn’t seem right and we would like to know what to do.
I would take her to the vet for a check-up. Dogs usually do not like peeing on themselves unless they are unable to control it.
How is her appetite? Energy level? Does her pee look normal?
Hi,
Thanks for replying! She is eating fine and is energetic as always. Her pee was a normal light yellow.
I found these two articles (on urinary issues) from the ASPCA to be quite informative –
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/dog-care-urinary-incontinence.aspx
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/dog-care-lower-urinary-tract-problems.aspx
A vet visit is probably best to determine if it is a physical urinary issue.
Hi,
We asked the vet about it, and he said since she’s only a puppy, sometimes they can’t control themselves. Since its then first time it happened, we shouldn’t be concerned about it. Thanks so much, Shibashake!!
That is very good to hear. Thanks for letting us know and big hugs to puppy!
I have two Boston Terriers and we successfully potty trained both dogs, or so we thought. Duke our older dog(7yrs.old)almost never pooped or peed in the house even during almost 6 hour periods during the school/work day and during the night. Edward who we got when Duke was about four we potty-trained and had luck! After about a year we felt we could trust him to stay out of the crate during the school/work day. He did good some days and bad others but nothing crazy. Duke had diaherra(excuse my spelling) and had to go back to the crate, he never acted sick and ate regularly. So just before we were about to take him to the vet he pooped regularly in the yard again! Ever since that both dogs have been acting like we’ve never potty-trained them in the first place! We are having our carpets cleaned today I think that will help. I have no idea what happened can you help me please??
-desperate dog lover
Hello Peyton,
1. Diarrhea
When my dogs have diarrhea, they often have a hard time holding it in. I let them out more often and sometimes, they may also need to go out at night. Recently, my younger Sibe Lara got giardia, which gave her bad diarrhea. She was still eating well and energetic, but she had to go out very often to do her business.
The vet gave us pills and some powdered medicine to give her, and we also switched her over to a bland diet. She got better after a couple of weeks.
In general, I find that when my dogs have diarrhea, switching over to a bland diet really helps.
2. Potty training
Hmmm, I am not sure I understand the timeline. It sounds like Duke’s diarrhea had already cleared up on its own? And then after that he started doing his business in the house frequently? Is his diarrhea totally gone? Did he visit with the vet? Is he on medication? Did the potty mistakes happen only after the vet? Did something else happen during the time of the potty mistakes?
Usually when I potty train my dogs I supervise them closely until they fully stop going inside the house. Once they have no potty mistakes for about two weeks, I feel better about relaxing the level of supervision.
Consistency and supervision are very important during the potty training period. If a dog can sometimes go on his own inside the house, then he may not know that we only want him to do his business in the backyard.
I have a chihuahua that might be mixed with another, unknown small dog breed. He’s a super sweet dog and he’s somewhere between 1 year and 18 months old. We live in an apartment and I’m getting ready to start working 2nd shift and my husband works 3rd shift so he sleeps while I work and I sleep while he works. Unfortunately, that means our puppy will have to be kept indoors during my second shift, which will be from about 2pm till about 11 pm. We have one of those training mats that have a compartment that catches the urine and a grassy mat on top. Our dog won’t use the bathroom on it. I tried getting some of that spray that’s supposed to help but it only makes him want to lay on it, not pee on it. I want to be able to put him in the kitchen while I’m at work so that he has some space to run around and play but I need to get him to use his mat. Any suggestions?
Hello Tara,
He probably does not know that he is supposed to go on the training mat. It may help to go back to basics and supervise him when you are home to go on the mat (while he is in the enclosure). With Shania I just no-mark her when it looks like she is about to go on the floor and put her on the potty pads.
Another thing I have observed is that Shania will happily go on clean pads but she does not go on them once they are soiled. My guess is that she does not like going on an area that smells strongly like her own urine. When she had to spend time in her enclosure, I made sure to always provide her with clean pads and to change them frequently.
Hope this helps and big hugs to your Chi!