4. Potty Intro
Potty time!
Surprisingly, puppies need to use the washroom just like us. Whether you’re at home, in your apartment, or at a friend’s place, you’ll need to be responsible for your puppies’ bathroom habits. Unfortunately, they have poor control over their bowels up until they reach about 6 months of age, but fortunately, they have you for life. Starting when they’re young can save you future headaches, clean ups & unpleasant smelling odors within your own home.
We’ll go over a few topics, but investing in a crate as a tool will make your life significantly easier. If you haven’t already, check out our overview here. The real key in this stage of your puppy’s training is to be consistent, pay attention, and be patient with them. This will hopefully be a fast chapter with your puppy that can get messy very quickly.
The Training
If you have already gotten your puppy a crate and started training them, you’re on the right track. Otherwise, it’s important you read up on how to house train your puppy, figure out your needs and create a plan. Crates do make potty training and your life much easier.
Dogs are den animals, meaning they’ll want a small puppy cave all to themselves. This natural instinct makes it easier for you to train your puppy to love their crate. Believe it or not, dogs are very clean animals and dislike urine-soaked living areas just like us.
With that in mind, picking an appropriately sized crate is vital – we want to find a crate that’s just big enough for them to stand up, turn around, and lie down. If their crate is too big for them, they’ll feel like it’s alright to let it go in one corner of the crate and then happily use the other side.
We’ll break it down into 5 parts below:
- Potty Training Schedule
- Watching/Supervision
- Diet/Water Control
- Feeding Schedule
Potty Training Schedule
- At a young age, structure is vital for success. Puppies have small bladders, meaning they pee very often, and the same thing goes for anything they eat. Our goal is to give your puppy the space & opportunity to do the right thing and go outside.
- A good rule of thumb is to give your puppy an hour of bladder control for their equivalent age in months (2 months of old, 2 hours of bladder control). This trick will hold true up until they reach around 9 months of age. Remember every puppy is different but holding in your “urges” for 8 hours is a long time for anyone. Pay attention and treat them as individuals; the time to take them out will differ for each pup, so use your best judgement.
- Be mindful of your puppy’s daily activities and habits when starting your schedule (alarms can help!). When they’re young, you should plan to take them out:
- First thing in the morning
- Right before sleeping
- After sleeping/spending time in a crate
- After eating/drinking
- After playing inside
- There’s a good chance that this will have you running outside a couple dozen times during a 24-hour period. This may place a strain on working from home or the office so finding a friend or hiring a sitter/walker might be in your best interest. The faster we help them understand the idea that there is a good place to go to the bathroom and that inside is off limits, the faster you’ll get through this stage.
(TIP: it can get messy – baking soda & vinegar help with cleaning!).
Watching/Supervision
During the day you’ll have to pay attention to your puppy for signals or clues - pretend it’s a game. Some puppies may be able to hold in their pee for longer than others, whereas some may need to pee right after playing or getting excited. Hopefully, they stop during their play time, pee, and continue on, but every puppy will have different potty habits that are unique to them.
Diet/Water Control
Puppies’ metabolism works a lot faster than ours, so drinking lots of water or eating after drinking can lead to many bathroom outings. Try to control your pup’s water bowl before sleep or after coming back from the dog park. Your pup will quite often overdrink when thirsty and need to pee within the next hour. Unfortunately, learned that the hard way.
Feeding Schedule
- A regular feeding schedule can create a rhythm for both you and your pup. This will help to control when they need to eat and help you know when to take them outside. They learn quickly, so starting out at a young age will help develop a routine for the both of you.
The Tips
- Add some tips/advice on things that I found that are useful and include links to helpful products I used
- Toys
- Balls
- Frisbees
- Crates are like a home within your home for your puppy. They help them to become more independent as they grow up and learn where to go if they need a nap. You can always decorate it, place a bed inside, or move it around the house, but just be sure to be mindful of noises and lighting.
- Young puppies need quiet & dark places to sleep undisturbed throughout the night, try throwing a blanket over their crate and keeping them away from potential noises like the laundry machines, open windows, or washrooms.
- Try placing a blanket down for additional comfort in their crate but also for even easier clean up. A towel will pick up some mud, dirt & other oils that your puppy may bring in. Instead of having to routinely scrub your crate or wash their bedding, you can wash the towel more frequently and the rest of their crate periodically. Who doesn’t love saving time & energy?
- On that note, as your puppy gets older you can even train them to bring their toys back to their crate instead of leaving them all over the house - bonus points if your puppy does it already! Every puppy is different, it’s up to you to figure out what they like best.