The BIGGEST Mistake People Make With Puppy House Training
Another gold star for you. Young lady. Now it’s pretty straight forward. If you have a schedule and you plan. Carefully puppy potty training, puppy, house training with your adorable young puppy will go pretty smoothly.
Now. I mean, sure. You might have the odd accident, but once you’ve got that schedule a step. Not to worry puppy owners in this video, we’re going to talk about the biggest mistake that puppy owners make when it comes to puppy house training and how you can turn things around.
I’m Ken Steepe, This is Hippy Shake. Welcome back to McCann Dogs. Here in our training facility, we’ve helped more than a hundred thousand dog owners who are just like you would overcome the same dog training challenges that you have.
So if this is your first time on the channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button so that I can help you to have a well behaved four legged family member. Now, I want to make a quick point just to start off the exact same tactics that I’m going to talk about today can also be used for things like pee pad training as well.
Now with tens of thousands of puppies that we’ve had an opportunity to work with, we actually know that people had training can often get a little more complicated for puppies, and we want to give our dogs the best information possible.
So if you have an opportunity to choose to use the outside, even if that means using a balcony or placing a pee pad in a very clearly different area, than indoors choose that. But as I talk about potty training, house training for your puppies over the course of this video, I want you to sort of replace the words on their pad whenever I say outside, but you can use these same strategies for Pee pad training.
Now, the biggest mistake that people make when it comes to puppy, house training has a lot less to do with the steps that you’re taking when you’re teaching your puppy to hold their bladder. And it is a lot more to do with what’s happening in between those accidents, in the things that you’re doing.
And you’re going to learn how to recognize when your puppy really needs to go out. And they’ve probably got some kind of schedule established. I’ll take my puppy out every hour. I’ll make sure I take them out every time they eat.
But there’s actually five times that I want you to be really aware of that your puppy is likely to make a mistake. They are before and after they go in their crate before and after a meal, after a nap before and after a play session.
And any time that you’re just not sure whether your puppy has to go or not take them out. So you’ve got those covered. But what about those times? They just go. Sometimes there’ll be like looking directly at you and they will pee first things.
First, you need to be a good dog trainer for your puppy. And that means you need to have good timing. You can’t fix what you don’t see. So supervision of your puppy, while you’re trying to fix these house training issues is an absolute must.
We have lots of videos on our channel that talk a little bit about house lines and why they’re so important, how they can be so helpful. It’s even more important when you’re struggling with tennis training, to be able to get a little bit more control of your puppy.
Come on buddy. Remember if you don’t see it, you fix it. I want you to focus on quality time with your puppy while they’re out of their crate. It’s not about the quantity of time. So this means when they’re out, you’re focused on them.
You’re playing with them. You’re training with them. You’re snuggling with them, but you were focused on them. So that the moment they start to sniff the floor in a weird spot, or they maybe scratch, or they do a little circle.
You can mark that with an eye or Hey, before they start to go. Now, this isn’t necessarily going to stop your puppy midstream, but it’s really going to Mark that moment for them. Now, some people maybe even clap their hands, really abruptly, a sharp sound that your puppy knows immediately, that they’re making a wrong choice.
Now, if your puppy does stop, that’s great. You can pick them up, take them outside and they can quickly finish their business. But if they don’t leave them in position, it’s so much easier than cleaning a trail of piddle all the way out to the door.
Keep in mind your puppy. Isn’t trying to be defiant, but if you’ve ever used an outhouse before, you’ll know that indoors is a much more comfortable option for doing your business. And the thing that’s really working against you is that puppies are going to do whatever feels good and emptying their bladder and their bowels is actually kind of rewarding.
Now, if you’re struggling with puppy, potty training, supervision is going to apply. Even when you go outside, puppies are so easily distracted. All of the sights and the smells and the sounds, even with a full bladder, they may completely forget why they’re out there.
So if I’m outside with my puppy on leash, I can easily redirect them away from something they get distracted by. But even more importantly, I can make sure that my puppy is actually gone that way. When we get back inside, she’s much less likely to have a full bladder and squat and pee right at the door.
If you have a puppy who will go pee immediately after you bring them back inside that I’m talking to you directly right now, when you come back in, you really need to watch your puppy closely. You’re doing your best to teach them what to do, but it’s just as important to tell them what not to do.
I talked a little bit about that negative verbal reprimand. So if they make a mistake and start to pee on the floor, you’ll use that verbal reprimand with an “AH” or a “HEY” or something to Mark that moment so that they understand that this isn’t the right choice.
You probably may never have had to hold their bladder before. So this is going to be where your direct information is going to help them really understand the rules of your home. At this point, you’re probably thinking there’s absolutely no way I can possibly supervise my puppy every minute of the day.
And you’re absolutely right. That’s why using a crate or a limited space area. It can be so effective, effective for teaching them to hold it. I’ll list a video in the description that talks a lot about using a crate for your puppy house training.
So if you’re new to puppy training, you’ll definitely want to check that video out puppies are the ultimate opportunists, and it’s the moment you let your guard down that you’re going to see them make these choices and make the wrong choices.
So it’s really important that you have a plan because like any other aspect of puppy training, if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. So by supervising your puppy really closely, while you get through their house training issues, you’re actually going to learn a lot about them.
You know, you’re going to start to notice what they do just before they squat. You, you might start to notice, and this is a classic one, your puppy disengages from you. Maybe you’re playing with them.
And they just, all of a sudden decide. They want to go elsewhere in the house. These are some of the cues. They can’t hold their bladder any longer and identifying and understanding. Some of these signs will be the key to fixing your puppy house training issues.
And it’s actually going to the kind of thing, be the kind of thing that carries over as your puppy grows up as your, they turn into a young dog. They’ll, they’ll show you some of those same signs and that’s how you can continue to be giving them great information, puppy, house training.
Isn’t the kind of skill or behavior that once they’ve learned it, they’ll never forget. It it’s much like the rest of their dog training. It’s a dynamic process. Some days you feel like your head, they haven’t had an accident in a couple of days.
Other days, you feel like they’ve completely regressed, but what’s really, really important for you as the puppy’s owner is that you’re keeping a close eye on them. You’re right there to give them the right information when they need it.
The most actually some of the puppy house training can start the very first time they come out of their kennel in the morning, I’m going to throw back to a clip that we did about teaching your puppy. How to let you know when it’s time to go out.
We know that after your puppy has been in their crate all night, that they’re going to have to go. So here’s what I want you to do. You’re going to grab your puppy’s leash. You’re going to go open your puppies crate and pick them up, clip on their leash, and then head up to the exterior door that you’re going to use to take your puppy outside to potty.
The reason we pick the puppy up is that we don’t want to risk the chance that your puppy is going to have an accident when they come out of their crepe between their crate and that exterior door. So the best thing you can do is pick that puppy up so that they don’t have an opportunity to make that mistake.
And then you can take them up to the inside of that exterior door. Now, most people will do at this point is take their puppy directly outside, but here’s the trick. At this point, we want you to set the puppy down and hang onto the leach.
Your puppy’s really got two choices. It’s either a have an accident on the floor, which we’ve talked about in previous potty training videos. You know, it’s not the best outcome, but it gives you an opportunity to tell the puppy that that’s not what you want, or your puppy is going to indicate they’re going to maybe sniff, or they’re going to maybe go towards the door or they’re going to look to you.
They’re going to look a little bit uncomfortable. And that’s the moment you Mark with your, do you want to go outside? And this is the foundation for this skill that your puppy needs to come to you to indicate that they need to go outside.
Now, this isn’t the kind of skill that will be learned in one session. You’re going to need to plan the same routine, a few mornings in a row as well. At other times of the day, you need to be really supervising your puppy and very aware if they start to indicate that they need to go potty and maybe those signals are sniffing or looking to you or scratching or whatever they might be, you’re going to learn them in those morning sessions.
If your puppy indicates they need to go outside, do you need to pick them up and immediately? So getting your puppy started the very first day they come home. The very first thing every morning is a great way to really show them what your expectations are, what you want them to do to show you that it’s time to go outside.
So keep that in mind. But the biggest takeaway of this video for you needs to be these nine words. If you don’t see it, you can’t fix it. One of the fastest ways you can help train your puppy is by using a crate appropriately.
Now there’s some really big mistakes that people make when it comes to crate training. And if you’re new to create trainings, you want to check with that card right there. It’s going to tell you about the biggest mistake that people make when it comes to puppy crate training.
And if you’d like some help and guidance with your puppy training adventure, with some help from McCann dogs, instructors, then make sure you check out the link below in the description to our puppy essentials program.
On that note, I’m Ken happy training.
