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Tips for Housetraining a Puppy or New Dog

 Submitted by Michael Adams on December 2, 2009


How to Housetrain New Dog:

Housetraining a puppy or a new dog can be a challenging affair and may take up to six months to be successful. If you cannot spend all day with your pet, then housetraining him is all the more challenging. One of the first problems you may face while housetraining a young puppy is that he/she may not yet be in control of his/her bowel movements.


This is particularly problematic with puppies, but may also be a problem with a new, previously untrained dog. In such cases, you should toilet train the puppy or new dog immediately to ensure that your pet is well adjusted to living in your home. Toilet training your puppy can follow one of several methods that work for him/her.


To start, if you are not at home, then you can allot a specific room to your puppy or new dog and cover the entire floor of the room in paper. This is so that your puppy gets used to doing his/her business on the paper. In time, you can start reducing the extent of floor covered by paper once the puppy starts to use just one space in his/her allotted room to do his/her business. After this routine stays stable for some time, you can start moving the paper to other places to get your puppy to use a location of your choice. 

If, however, you have time to spend with him/her then you can try other methods of toilet training. You can take your puppy or new dog to a specified location every forty five minutes or so or in between play time to instill the habit of using a particular spot. It is also important to teach your puppy or new dog how to stay at home alone without misbehaving or destroying anything. You can accomplish this by confining your puppy in an area with sufficient room to move about for small periods of time. Slowly increasing the time he/she spends on his/her own will help your puppy stay home alone while you are away. Remember that you can only start this kind of training once your puppy has already been toilet trained. While training your puppy or new dog, remember to reward him/her for good behavior as much as you admonish them for misbehaving. This will ensure that your puppy remembers that he can expect rewards for behaving well and is not only scolded.

Ensure that you teach your puppy to socialize before he/she becomes aggressive or uncontrollable around other people and animals. To achieve this, you can take him/her for daily walks where your puppy will have the chance to meet other kinds of animals and people.

 
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