The most important thing to teach your puppy to relieve himself in a specific place is patience and perseverance. With this and following the 4 key steps that we will teach you below, in a short time you will have a well-behaved puppy.
1. Define the place where he will do his needs.
2. Anticipate and always take you to that place.
3. Reward him immediately afterwards.
4. Clean accidents with enzymatic products.
1. Define the place where to do his needs.
The chosen place can be a specific place in the patio or, if you live in an apartment, a place where you put a physical element to differentiate it, such as training sheets, a grass box, a platform with the newspaper, among others. It is very important not to change the defined place during the learning process.
It is advisable to use urination stimulators such as the PuppyTrainer educational spray, but it is equally useful to place a few drops of your puppy’s urine in the chosen place; the only difference is that the spray does not have the scent of urine. Never let the pup see you spraying the product, keep it out of his reach and wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after use. Puppies are very smart.
2. Watch him constantly, go ahead and take him to the place where you want him to urinate.
While the training period lasts, it is important to constantly observe our puppy because the key is to anticipate the moments where he will need to urinate or defecate in order to take him to the area designated as a bathroom. For example, he just wakes up (in the morning or from a nap), after any physical activity and/or after eating or drinking water.
We recommend taking him to his bathroom every 1.5 hours during the first week of training, gradually lengthening and then always following a routine at specific times. The puppy will gradually understand to relieve himself in the right place based on those patterns.
The more you increase the chances that your pup will “hit” him and relieve himself in the right place, the faster he will learn.
3. Reward him every time he relieves himself in his bathroom.
You should reward him immediately after he finishes urinating or defecating in the right place, but it is very important to wait for him to finish relieving himself for this, you should never interrupt him. The prize can be with a snack or some food pellets with love and pampering, or better both.
If our puppy receives a treat every time he relieves himself where we ask, he will soon learn that it is better for him to relieve himself there than elsewhere.
If he has an “accident” and needs him where he “shouldn’t”, DO NOT scold him by yelling at him, let alone hitting him. This will only generate distrust and can even create bad learning, such as being unable to urinate in your presence for fear of the consequences, so that when you take him out for a walk, he would not urinate. If you find pee on your floor, don’t do anything, just clean it up and pay more attention next time. At that point, he will no longer understand what he did wrong and you will only confuse and stress him out. He’ll know you’re challenging him, but he won’t know why. If this happens it is our responsibility for not being aware and, for the rest, we must take into account that puppies finish controlling their sphincters around 6 months on average.
4. Clean accidents with enzymatic products.
It is very important because urine has pheromones, these are chemical substances that dogs release to “communicate” with each other, which the puppy interprets as “marking” or “my territory”. If you don’t clean it with this type of product, your puppy will probably go back to relieve himself in that place even though you don’t notice the smell and you see it completely clean. Remember that the smell of dogs is much more developed than ours because they have at least 50 times more olfactory receptors.
Finally, it should be noted that all the products mentioned by themselves are not a solution, they are a help. The most decisive thing for your puppy to learn is to follow these 4 steps patiently until he understands it.