Mind your Pees and Poos: Potty Training Your Pup

Congratulations, you’ve got a new best friend! There’s just one problem: your friend doesn’t know it’s not polite to claim your carpets as their own. You’re not the first to face this situation. Here’s a quick guide to potty training.

Hide the Good Stuff.

First things first: if you can’t bear to have it peed or pooped on, get it out of the way. Puppies and new dogs often can’t help themselves, so just remove the temptation. Once they’re fully house trained, you can pull out your priceless Persian rugs again.

Consider Pads.

Training pads can be helpful for the first few weeks of housetraining a puppy, giving them somewhere to pee during the night. Reward them just like peeing outside, with treats for going in the right place. Just make sure to work on transitioning your pup to peeing outside, and don’t feel bad if your puppy seems more interested in chewing the pad than peeing on it. It happens to the best of us!

Clean the odor, not just the stain.

Dogs have super sensitive noses. So just because you can’t smell the odor of an oopsie, doesn’t mean they can’t either. Worse, if they smell urine or poop, they’ll keep going in that location. It’s like the doggy version of X marks the spot.

So use one of our enzymatic cleaning solutions to destroy not just the stain, but the smell, ensuring your buddy doesn’t get any strange ideas.

Keep your cool.

Don’t punish your puppy. They don’t know what’s right or wrong when it comes to going to the toilet. And they may not understand why you’re punishing them. Dog owners who rub their pets’ faces near urine or poop, or who punish their dog for making a mistake, may be accidentally telling their dogs that going to the toilet is always bad, leading to lots of behavioral problems later.

Instead, act like everything’s fine (easier said than done, we know) and take your dog outside.

Celebrate success.

The easiest way to teach your doggie to go outside is to reward them for it. Wait till they’ve finished and then throw a pee and poopy party. Celebrate them and give them a great treat, and keep doing so until they get it. Our friends at Fruitables have some totally craveworthy snacks. that’ll have your pooch peeing on cue.

Accidents happen.

House training can take a while to stick. While your puppy will probably start to get the hang of it in the first couple of weeks, accidents do happen, especially if your puppy gets excited. Or there’s a change in routine. Just clean up the mess, get rid of the odor, and keep on with training. They’ll get there in the end.