Prevent House Soiling
House training easily becomes a habit for your puppy if you follow a good routine that gives your puppy adequate opportunities to relieve himself.
However, a puppy that is already an established house soiler will require more patience and increased management and supervision to prevent him from making potty mistakes.
Here are key measures to manage and prevent house-soiling:
✅ Confinement
- Keep your puppy in a crate or confined area when unsupervised.
- Set up a long-term confinement area with a potty area included inside if you will be away and need to confine him for longer than 4 hours.
✅ Active Supervision
- Provide strict supervision when the puppy is outside of confinement.
- Watch for signs the puppy needs to relieve himself and guide him to the potty area. Praise and reward the puppy for relieving himself in the correct space.
✅ Scheduled Feeding
- Feed your puppy on a schedule to more easily predict potty habits.
- Observe patterns specific to your puppy, such as needing to pee/poop after meals or waking up.
✅ Maintain Cleanliness
- Keep living areas clean to prevent the puppy from identifying previously soiled areas as potty spots.
- Use enzymatic cleaners for thorough cleaning.
Pee Schedule
As a loose guide, the number of hours that a young puppy can comfortably hold his urine is equivalent to the puppy’s age in months:
- A 1-month old puppy can hold it for about an hour
- A 2-month old puppy can hold it for 2 hours;
- A 3-month old puppy can hold it for 3 hours and so on.
So if, for example, you have a 2 month old puppy, it’s a good idea to guide him to potty every 2 hours.
After 6-8 months of age, your now adolescent dog will have sufficient bladder control that you will only need to let him out to pee around 3-4 times a day.
Poop Schedule
- The need to poop will depend on your puppy’s feeding schedule.
- Avoid free-feeding or leaving food down outside of designated meal times to make it easier to predict when the puppy will need to poop.
Key Potty Times
To avoid accidents, be extra vigilant and consider adding extra potty trips to your schedule after these activities:
- Immediately after the puppy wakes up
- Immediately after being released from confinement
- After every meal
- After or in between play and exercise sessions
Potty Guidance
- Carry or leash-guide your puppy to the designated potty spot to limit his movements and to ensure he doesn’t go exploring instead.
- Potty Cues: Calmly repeat words like “Go pee-pee” or “Go poop-poop” as your puppy begins to go. With good timing and many repetitions of this, you can teach your puppy to go on cue.
- Praise your puppy and reward him with a treat after relieving himself.
- If your puppy doesn’t go within 5-10 minutes, return him to the crate or confinement space, wait for 15 minutes, and try again.
- Adjust the schedule as needed, especially in the early stages of house training.
Continue Supervision
- Your puppy may, as quickly as he learned to pee and poop in the correct place, unlearn this habit if left unsupervised too soon.
Continue supervising your puppy until close to a year old. Supervision may need to last longer if you are trying to break your puppy or young dog out of house-soiling habits.