The first training lesson for pet owners is housebreaking a puppy outdoors. The appropriate age for teaching your pet to eliminate is usually done when the puppy is between six and eight weeks old. Dogs whose ages start from four weeks have been started on the program. However, at that age, only a small number of dogs have developed proper muscular control to make it outside when going potty.

The dog owner’s patience is as important as the dog’s temperament. This is typical in any dog training routine. Different behaviors like ’sit’ or ’stay’ can usually be learned quickly. Potty training, on the other hand, usually requires weeks and sometimes even a month or more to accomplish.

Watching for the actions you want to teach as behaviors and following them up with verbal direction and praise is key to reinforcing these activities. This is actually advantageous to the trainer, as dogs will eliminate on their own. The real challenge is getting the dog to do so at the place and time that the trainer desires.

When housebreaking your puppy, you need to watch for circling or squatting. Once you’ve spotted this behavior, you need to pick up the puppy and say “outside.” Then quickly take the puppy outside. As the puppy begins to go, you need to give it a recognizable command such as “go potty” using a strong and clear voice, but not an angry one. Once the puppy is done, lavish your puppy with praise and do it on the spot.

If you fail to catch the puppy before it begins to go potty, don’t get upset or annoyed. Your dog will need some time to learn the desired behavior, as well as to develop proper control of its bowel and bladder muscles.

A dog typically needs to eliminate every few hours, but this varies. Even if you haven’t seen behavior indicating a need to eliminate, take precaution and take the dog outside anyway. After taking the puppy outside, clearly issue the appropriate phrase or command.

Often, the dog will have no idea what you’re asking. Wait for the behavior, and then say the command again. That way, the dog will learn to connect the two events. If you have no success after five or ten minutes and repeated commands, bring the dog back inside, but continue to monitor it for signs of needing to go potty.

It’s uncanny how quickly dogs can learn to obey the commands of their alpha, or the leader of their group. These commands are often given verbally, and reinforced with praise. Punishing the dog is often unhelpful, especially when it comes to elimination training. Also, it is counterproductive to physically harm your dog and to put its nose into its own waste.

Paper training is another method that some dog owners use. A dog can be trained to go potty on a newspaper or on highly absorbent housebreaking pads that are treated to attract dogs to use them. A few smaller breeds of dogs that stay at home all day can be potty trained indoors. This is also an option for pet owners who do not have a yard where they can do elimination training for their dogs.

However, there are a few major downfalls to using this method. Unlike cats, dogs will refuse a pleasantly scented litter box. Also, even when the soiled layer of the newspaper is removed, an odor will still develop in the house.

Dogs also recognize their own smell all too well. It makes them feel comfortable to be around it, so after being paper trained they often choose to continue going potty inside. Unfortunately, they may occasionally overshoot the paper by a wee bit and leave you a smelly mess to get rid of.

After detecting its odor, the dog will continue to seek out the same spot and consider it as the “place to go.” This complicates the whole outdoor potty training process, so it is better to have a few training mishaps than to create a difficult habit.

The most important thing to remember when training a dog is that patience, praise and consistency will go a long way in getting results. Housebreaking a puppy has its challenges, but if you keep at it, you will eventually succeed.

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- Jessica Hope R. Butler