Most dog owners aren’t too keen on having a puppy leaving puddles on their floors, so if you’re getting a new puppy, the best time to start potty training is the minute you bring them home. Potty training should begin around three weeks of age, when the puppies are able to go to the bathroom on their own, unfortunately most breeders do not begin the training process at this time, so it is up to you to train them.
If you are lucky enough to purchase a puppy from a breeder that does begin training, you will find it simpler to train your furry friend, as they will not have already formed bad bathroom habits. If you start potty training puppies when they are very young, they become aware that their fluids are disliked. It will be much less challenging to potty train these puppies that began their training early, as they will be against pooping or urinating in their sleeping or living area.
Unfortunately, potty training doesn’t usually happen for most pups at this early stage in their life. Part of this could be that owners don’t typically bring a puppy home until they are around 6 to 8 weeks of age. Most of the puppies enter their new home without having any potty training experience, and are still using the bathroom where they sleep and live, and thus, may be much more challenging to train. The more potty training they have received, the less difficult it will be to fully train them.
It’s important to begin potty training your new puppy the minute they get to their new home. Of course being in a new environment can be intimidating to a new puppy, and you don’t want to frighten them by reacting harshly if they potty in an unacceptable area, so it’s best to show them right from the start teaching them the place that is acceptable for them to go potty. You will want to do this to meet two basic goals.
To let the puppy know that there are specific places that are acceptable to potty in, and other places that are absolutely not. These behaviors you want to instill in them will need to be a repetitive process in order for them to learn. You definitely do not want your puppy believing that it is okay to use the bathroom anywhere, and neglecting any opportunity to correct them, will give rise to this behavior. The future consequences of this will be extremely problematic.
If you begin with enforcing that there are only certain areas in which it is appropriate to go potty, then it will be a breeze teaching them the areas that are not acceptable. To avoid confusion, you will do best to establish a potty training procedure for your puppy, and follow that program until the potty training is complete. Repetition is the biggest way from which dogs learn, so when training them consistency is key. After you have chosen a potty training method, continue using that same method throughout the training process.
Remember that potty training can take quite a while, especially if you got a puppy with no previous training. This is the reason it is imperative to begin training your puppy as soon as you can. Your puppy will be trained sooner, and with less difficulty if you do this.
