January 15, 2024 • 57 mins
Struggling with a four-legged friend who just can't seem to grasp the concept of potty training? Stress no more! Unleash the secrets to a mess-free home as I, Will Bangura, guide you through the maze of housebreaking your canine companion. I'll walk you through supervising and guiding your pup with the compassion and consistency needed to ensure that accidents become a thing of the past. From understanding your dog's body language to the correct use of crates and cues, I'm here to support your journey to a well-trained pet.
With patience as our mantra, we delve into the delicate balance of positive reinforcement, steering clear of old-school punishment that does more harm than good. Discover the magic of a potty training journal, spot behavioral patterns, and learn how to distinguish between a simple slip-up and a sign of something more concerning that might require a vet's attention. Whether it's navigating the occasional indoor accident or addressing excitable urination, this episode is packed with practical solutions to help you and your furry friend find harmony in the potty training process.
For the busy pet parent or the owner of a tiny toy breed, I've got a toolkit of alternatives up my sleeve. We cover all bases, from pee pads to dog doors, ensuring that your dog's pathway to potty independence is as smooth as possible. By the end of our chat, you'll be equipped with the techniques and knowledge to confidently master the art of potty training, and for those yearning for even more insight, my book "House Training 101: Potty Training Unleashed" awaits. Tune in, transform your dog's habits, and wave goodbye to unwanted messes!
If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's nothing worse than having a puppy or a dog.
Think that it's okay to use thehouse as a toilet.
Did you get a new puppy?
Or maybe you got a new dogduring the holidays?
We're going to be talking allabout how do you potty train
even the most stubborn anddifficult puppy and older dog.
(00:24):
Don't go anywhere.
We're going to unpack all ofthis in 60 seconds.
Good day dog lovers.
(01:09):
I'm Will Bangura.
Hey, thanks for joining me foranother episode of dog training
today.
Did you get a new dog duringthe holidays?
Or maybe you've already got adog, but you've been struggling
with trying to potty train apuppy or a dog.
I'm going to take this entirepodcast to talk about how you
(01:32):
can potty train the moststubborn puppy, the most
stubborn dog and, for some ofyou, if you've got an older dog,
trust me that old adage youcan't teach an old dog new
tricks.
If that's not true, we canteach an old dog how to potty in
the correct spot and no longeruse the house as a toilet.
(01:53):
So let's talk about let's talkabout potty training, the number
one rule, the number one rulein potty training.
Write this down the dog or thepuppy needs to be in your
eyesight.
You need to be supervising thedog or puppy with the potty
(02:18):
training problem at all times.
I know it sounds daunting, it'sreally not.
But if you can't watch thepuppy or dog, if you can't
supervise, if you have to takeyour eyes off of them, and I
mean even for 10 seconds, youneed to put them in the crate,
(02:38):
you need to confine them.
If you haven't done cratetraining, it's pretty much kind
of an essential.
When it comes to potty training,the whole idea is that most
dogs, most puppies, are notgoing to soil their den, and
part of that is making sure thatyou get the right size crate.
(02:59):
You know a lot of people aregetting crates that are way too
big.
The size of the crate shouldonly be as big as the puppy or
dog.
What do I mean by that?
So if your dog, if your puppyis laying down or standing up,
they're not squished together.
There's enough room from thebase of the tail to the tip of
(03:21):
their nose for them to laycomfortably, but not a whole lot
more If there's a lot of room,if it's a large, super large
crate, hey, some dogs, somepuppies, they'll just go in the
corner.
Yep, they'll go in the cornerof the crate.
They'll pee, they'll poop there.
And now now we've got anotherproblem, because now we can't
even use that when we can'tsupervise right.
(03:44):
But the number one rulesupervise or confine, and that's
so that your puppy, your dog,can't continue to rehearse the
unwanted behavior of using thehouse as a toilet, of going to
the bathroom in the house.
That's just going to keep ongetting more and more and more
(04:07):
conditioned.
So part of what we need to dois think about how can we create
the most success and the leastfailure, and we're going to talk
about this.
Oh and, by the way, if youreally want to understand potty
(04:30):
training, you can go to Amazon.
I've wrote a 350 odd page bookall on potty training older dogs
, younger dogs, puppies, dogsthat need to have pee pads in
the house or a special spotoutside.
(04:51):
So you can go to Amazon.
If you want to get thedefinitive guide, you can get my
book, house Training 101.
Potty Training Unleashed byWill Bangura.
Again, that's House Training101.
Potty Training Unleashed byWill Bangura.
You can also go to my websiteat dogbehavioristcom.
(05:12):
Look for the in the menu, thelink that says books, and you
can find my book on pottytraining there as well.
But I like to give back to thecommunity.
Not everybody can affordtraining.
You guys could certainly affordthe book, but here's some free
content for you, because nobodylikes dealing.
(05:32):
You know, when I talk to petparents, what they hate the most
and what they want to be donewith the quickest is potty
training.
All right, so we already talkedabout that.
There is a need for cratetraining and I'm not going to
talk about how to crate train inthis particular podcast.
(05:56):
And, by the way, if you'relistening to this podcast,
please make sure that yousubscribe so that you never miss
any of the dog training todaypodcast Hit subscribe.
Please share this with yourfriends and if you love what we
do, please give us a five starreview.
That helps our rankings gohigher, which means that more
people get to benefit from thisinformation.
(06:17):
All right, so crate training isa must.
We're going to kind of fastforward, assuming that you're
either going to learn how tocrate train, or you know how to
crate train, or your puppy ordog is already crate trained.
Now let me say this Any timeyou need to put your puppy or
your dog in the crate and you'rein the process of still potty
(06:39):
training your pet.
You need to make sure thatbefore you put your puppy or dog
in the crate, that you takethem outside, give them the
opportunity to relievethemselves.
And here's the thing abouttaking your dog or puppy outside
.
What I like to do when I getout there I'm watching the puppy
(07:00):
or dog and I'm very slowly justwalking back and forth, just
kind of pacing very slowly, notengaging with the puppy or dog.
I don't want them to bedistracted.
I'm trying to get them to movearound, put their nose to the
ground, find that special spotthat all puppies and dogs need
to find right to go to thebathroom and have success out
(07:23):
there.
If your puppy, if your dog isnot distracted when you take
them outside to use the bathroom, only keep them out there for
about five minutes.
You know I watch people bringtheir puppy, their dog out there
for 10, 15, 20, 30, 35, 40, anhour.
That's insane.
(07:44):
If your puppy or dog is notdistracted, if they're sniffing
on the ground, most likely, inmost cases, they're going to go
to the bathroom within fiveminutes.
Now some dogs they're going toget some puppies are going to
get very distracted when theyget outside, you may have to
(08:05):
wait out a period of time andstart that watch, start that
timer of five minutes when thepuppy or dog settles down.
If they go outside right awayand they're distracted doing all
kinds of things, you can'tcount that as the five minutes.
It has to be non-distracted.
Five minutes, alright, one ofthe critical things that needs
(08:32):
to happen.
Your dog needs to have apaycheck.
Your puppy needs to have a veryhigh value reward when it goes
to the bathroom in the correctspot.
That's one of the ways thatpuppies, that's one of the ways
that dogs learn and that wecreate behaviors and we
condition behaviors.
There's a payoff.
When a behavior has a function,then that behavior also has
(08:57):
value because there's a payout.
Dogs, puppies, any animalthey're going to be more apt to
want to repeat that behavior.
So, preparation for pottytraining when you wake up in the
morning, you should have atreat pouch on you.
You should have a bunch ofextremely high value food awards
(09:17):
.
I'm talking something extremelyyummy, listen.
The more your puppy and doglikes the food reward, the more
your puppy and dog is going tobe motivated to go to the
bathroom outside, which meansthat you're going to be done
with this quicker and you canregain your house back and it
doesn't have to continue to be atoilet.
(09:38):
Alright, so high value foodawards.
When you wake up in the morning, put that treat pouch on.
Leave the treat pouch on at alltimes until you go to bed or
until you leave the house.
You need to have that Listenfor all kinds of other manners
issues and just teaching the dogdifferent, appropriate manners
(10:00):
within the house.
You should have a treat pouchon anyway until your dog is
trained.
Don't bribe your dog by havingthe food in your hand.
Put it in the treat pouch.
Give the food to the puppy ordog after they do the behavior,
(10:20):
immediately after.
I don't like to bribe with food.
Think about that treat pouch.
It's like a wallet or a purse.
Okay, the behavior happens orthe work happens.
Then you reach in that walletor purse and pay for the job
well done.
In this case it's not a purse,it's not a wallet, it's a treat
pouch and the pay is high valuefood rewards.
(10:42):
Okay.
Now some of you will tell mehey, my dog's not food motivated
.
Baloney, every dog is foodmotivated.
You just didn't find the rightkind of food, unless you've got
a dog that's constantly in astate of high anxiety or panic
and then their appetite shutsdown.
That's a different.
(11:02):
That's a whole different ballgame.
All right, we talked about cratetraining.
We talked about needing to havea treat pouch having high value
food rewards.
We talked about that.
The number one rule is you haveto have the puppy or the dog in
your eyesight at all times.
You have to be able to seewhere they're at, have to be
(11:26):
able to supervise, and when youcan't, you must crate the puppy
or dog.
And I'm not a fan of X-pens andI'm not a fan of, you know,
giving the puppy or dog its ownroom, like the laundry room or
something like that.
It's too big.
Those areas are way too big topotty train.
(11:46):
You need to use a crate andthere are some very specific
things in order to have success.
Now, when I wrote my book HouseTraining 101, potty Training
Unleashed which, by the way,I'll plug it again, you can get
that on Amazon I wrote that bookas if I had the most difficult
(12:12):
dog in the world to potty train,so that anybody and everybody
could have success if theypicked up a copy of House
Training 101.
I'm going to give you some ofthe highlights here.
I obviously can't, in a podcast, read 350, some odd pages, so
(12:33):
if you're really struggling,think about possibly looking at
getting my book.
All right, supervisor, confined, number one rule.
Now let me tell you what makesthat a little bit easier Letting
your puppy or dog drag a leasharound.
(12:55):
I don't like leashes.
I actually like to.
As far as dragging leashes, Ilike to get about three or four
feet of light rope and I like toattach a metal leash clasp to
that light rope, hook that totheir harness or collar and
they're just dragging thataround as they're moving around.
Why do I like that?
Because they don't know whatall the rules are right now and
(13:20):
I may need to guide the puppy ordog, and it sure makes life a
whole lot easier.
I need to be supervising orconfining.
So what happens if I need to gofrom one room to the next and
let's say that my new puppy ordog's name is Bobo and I go Bobo
, let's go and I start moving toa different room?
(13:41):
What if Bobo doesn't follow?
I want to be able to take thatI call it a drag line that light
rope that's again three or fourfeet long, with a leash clasp
on it, attached to their collaror harness.
I'm just going to grab that andjust guide them with me to go
where I'm going, because, again,I've got to keep them in my
eyesight, all right, all right,let's talk about what do you do.
(14:06):
What do you do?
What do you do if there's anaccident?
First of all, if there's anaccident and you did not see it
happen, in the act, there isnothing you can do other than
clean it up.
And we're going to talk aboutcleaning up in just a little bit
(14:29):
, all right.
But what you want to do ifyou're witnessing the puppy or
dog going to the bathroom in thehouse in the act, you're just
going to go ahead and guide thepuppy or dog outside to see if
(14:51):
they can finish and if they do,you're going to reward them.
Now, the one thing you're notgoing to hear me say is punish
your dog for going to thebathroom in the house.
The one thing you're not goingto hear me say is go ahead and
rub its nose in its mess.
That is old school folks.
(15:12):
No modern educated dog trainers, behavior consultants,
behaviorists ever do that.
First of all, you're creating alot of anxiety and stress.
You are associating thatanxiety and stress with yourself
and you're trying to build abond and a relationship with
this new puppy or dog.
(15:32):
But if you're causing fear,pain and intimidation because
you're punishing the dog forhaving an accident, it's not
going to help much in terms ofteaching the dog where to go and
if your timing is not perfect,the puppy or dog won't
understand why it's happening inthe first place.
But here's the bottom line.
We know from study after studyafter study, science, science,
(15:58):
science.
You can use positivereinforcement to train in any
behavior and you can usepositive reinforcement to train
out any unwanted behavior.
You don't need to usepunishment.
So if you're talking to anothertrainer, if you're talking to a
behavior consultant orbehaviorist and they're telling
(16:19):
you hey, you need to correct thedog, you need to punish the dog
, you need to walk away fromthem.
It's not that they're badpeople, they just don't know
what they're talking about.
And again, if any trainer saysto you positive reinforcement
doesn't work, here's the deal.
They just don't know how tomake it work.
They're just not that skilledin positive reinforcement.
(16:42):
Hey, I'll give you this.
You have to have greater skills, you have to be a better
trainer to use positivereinforcement, but the benefits
in terms of the bonding thatyou're going to do with your pet
and that relationship thatyou're going to have.
And you know there's this hugerisk when you use punishment
(17:06):
that there can be long termrepercussions, creating anxiety
and fear and all kinds ofproblems.
But I want you to think aboutthis how fair is it, how fair is
it to punish an animal that hasabsolutely no clue what the
rules are?
We need to take the time toteach them where it is.
(17:31):
We would like them to go to thebathroom, because the dog, the
puppy's just being a dog, it'sjust being a puppy.
They got to go, they go.
They're DNA, they're genetics.
Doesn't tell them.
Oh, you know, if you're in ahouse, let's go outside and not
make a mess.
We've got to teach that.
So oftentimes people arecorrecting and punishing their
(17:53):
puppies and dogs for just beinga puppy, being a dog and not
knowing what your rules arebecause you didn't take the time
to teach them.
Okay, all right, we talkedabout that drag line.
Listen, let me say one morething about the crate, because
this is where a lot of accidentshappen, and then I'll get back
to telling you what you need todo when there is an accident
(18:16):
other than, hey, don't punish.
Okay, you're going to take thepuppy, get him back outside.
You are going to see if theyneed to void more, go to the
bathroom more, keep them outthere for five minutes of
undistracted time and then, whenyou come back in, go ahead and
put them in their crate and thenclean up the mess.
(18:39):
Now you need to make sure thatyou're using a really good
cleaner, because you know dog'ssense of smell is just
incredible.
You know cleaning supplies thatget rid of the smell for you
and I, for us humans will notget rid of the smell for the
dogs.
I mean literally, they cansmell one drop of blood diluted
in a 55 gallon barrel of water.
(19:02):
Okay, their sense of smell iscrazy, crazy good.
So you need to find a productthat's enzyme based.
I like SCOEX 10X, SCOE 10X youcan get that at SCOE10Xcom and
10 is 1-0.
Nature's miracle.
(19:23):
A lot of people have heard ofthat.
Follow the directions on thebottle, just you know.
Guess on how to use it, becauseit makes a big difference when
you use it the correct way.
And let me just give you thisbig tip If you're potty training
and a dog or a puppy, make sureyou've got a black light.
(19:43):
We'll come back to the blacklight, because the black light
if there's an accident and let'ssay it dried up and you can't
see it right.
Well, if you go through thehouse with a black light,
they'll light up like aChristmas tree Everywhere.
The dog went to the bathroom.
You're going to see this bright, like yellowish stain, come up
with the black light.
(20:03):
And I tell you to get a blacklight because that keeps you
honest, because here, rememberwhat I said.
Number one rule keep the puppyor dog in your eyesight, and
when you can't, you need toconfine in the crate.
Well, how well did you do that?
You know, if every evening, atthe end of the evening, you go
through the house with a blacklight, you start finding areas
(20:24):
where your puppy or dog went tothe bathroom.
Guess what?
You didn't follow rule numberone, did you?
And here's the thing I want totell you it can be exhausting to
have to follow a new puppyaround and to keep your eyes on
a puppy at all time.
I never want you to feel guiltyabout needing a break and
(20:47):
having that puppy or dog go toits crate.
You can give it a toy, you cangive it a chew like a bully
stick or something like that tokeep it busy.
But you may need breaks andit's okay to do that.
You know there are.
If you're like me and you get onthe couch and you're watching
(21:09):
TV, it doesn't take long beforeI start dozing off.
If I've got a dog or a puppy,then I'm potty training and I
start feeling myself dozing off.
Hey, I better get up and Ibetter crate the puppy or dog,
because if I fall asleep I'm notthere to supervise right.
And even if let's say that thephone rings and it's an
(21:29):
important call and you reallyneed to pay attention, you need
to tell the caller hey, hold ona second, hold on and then go
crate your dog and then go backto the call and when the call is
done you can take the puppy orthe dog out of the crate.
The reason we're doing this isto avoid accidents.
(21:50):
Remember, we want to have asfew accidents as possible and as
many successes as possible.
So supervisor confine is huge.
Let's say you need to use therestroom.
You got to go to the bathroom.
Well, a lot of people will justdo that and not crate the puppy
or dog and then they come outof the bathroom only to find an
(22:12):
accident happened.
So think about all all theselittle short duration situations
where you might not be able topay attention to the dog or
puppy, where you need to confinethem.
Telephone rings important callGot to go to the restroom.
Somebody comes to the door.
Hold on a second.
(22:34):
You know they're knocking onthe door.
Hold on a second.
Create the puppy, create thedog and then go deal with who's
at the door.
Maybe there's somebody that'scoming to the house to do some
repair work on something.
Tell them to wait, put up thedog.
These things are really crucial.
(22:55):
They're little, they're tinylittle tips, but boy, these are
gems, these are diamonds.
This is going to be thedifference between success and
failure.
All right, the next thing let'stalk about keeping a journal.
Remember, I said I'm going toapproach this as if I've got a
(23:17):
puppy or a dog.
That's the most difficult puppyor dog in the world to potty
train.
All right, there's a couple ofthings I want to do.
Number one I want to feed on aschedule.
I'm going to feed at the sametime every day.
I'm going to set the food downfor five or 10 minutes and then
I'm picking it up and it's notgoing back down until the next
(23:41):
scheduled feeding.
And again, I'm going to feed atthe same time every day.
I'm also going to offer waterwith meals and 10 minutes after
that's down, that also getspicked up.
Now, throughout the day I amgoing to offer water, but I'm
(24:07):
not leaving water down for thepuppy or dog to drink at any
time they want.
I'm not leaving food down forthem to graze and free feed.
Water and food are scheduled.
I'm going to write down in mypotty training journal what time
(24:27):
it is when my puppy or dogdrinks.
Every time they drink.
I'm going to write in my pottytraining journal what time it is
when my puppy or dog eats,every single time they eat.
I'm also going to collectreally important data.
I don't know Maybe some of youknow where I'm going with this.
(24:48):
Every time the puppy or doggoes to the bathroom, I'm going
to mark it down what was thattime.
In my potty training journalI'm going to differentiate Did
the dog go potty, did it go poop, was it an accident or was it a
success?
And I'm going to keep thisjournal and I'm going to keep on
(25:14):
putting that information inthere while I'm potty training?
Why, listen, if you feed on aschedule, if you give water on a
schedule and you keep a pottytraining journal, you are going
to find a pattern.
I don't know what the patternis going to be.
Let me just make one up, butthere's going to be a pattern.
Let's say your puppy or dogdrinks and you're collecting
(25:39):
data, you're writing down whattime it drinks and you're
writing down what time it eitherhas an accident or a success,
whether it's pee or poop.
How long after your puppy ordog drinks does it typically
need to pee?
How long after your puppy ordog typically eats, does it need
to poop?
If you're feeding on a schedule, if you're giving water on a
(26:02):
schedule and you're collectingthat data, you are going to find
a pattern.
And now you're going to be ableto pretty, pretty, pretty well
predict when this puppy, whenthis dog, is needing to go to
the bathroom.
And that is huge.
That is huge for us to preventaccidents.
(26:22):
It's huge for us to be able tocreate as much success having
the ability to set a timer.
Maybe it is your smartphone orsomething, but if my data says,
hey, 30 minutes after my dogdrinks, it's going to go to the
bathroom.
I'm going to set my timer forlike 20, 25 minutes and I'm
(26:46):
going to get that puppy outsideso I can have more successes.
All right, that is crucial,absolutely crucial If you want
to make this go quickly, if youwant to be done with potty
training, keep a potty trainingjournal, keep a log.
(27:08):
Okay, that's absolutely one ofthe best things you can do to
have success potty training yourpuppy or your dog.
All right, have you ever had thesituation with your current
puppy or dog, or maybe one thatyou had in the past, where you
took it outside to go to thebathroom?
You watched it go to thebathroom, only to bring it back
(27:30):
in the house and it goes to thebathroom in the house within the
next five minutes.
Yeah, that happens, it does.
Why does that happen?
Well, some dogs, some puppies,do not empty their bladder in
one squat or one leg lift.
They may need to pee severaldifferent times to completely
(27:54):
empty their bladder.
And then there are some dogsthat don't empty their bowel
just with one squat.
You know they could if you keptthem out there.
They may walk around, movearound, and five minutes later
they're going again.
But when you keep a pottytraining journal and you start
(28:14):
seeing a pattern that, hey, thepuppy or dog went to the
bathroom outside, we broughtthem inside and within five
minutes, 10 minutes, they wentagain inside, that's important
data, that's importantinformation so that you can do
the right thing.
What does that tell you?
It tells you what I just saidYou've got a puppy, you've got a
dog that doesn't empty thebladder on the first shot.
(28:35):
That tells you you need to stayoutside a little longer.
A little longer.
Now, as you're doing this, asyou're collecting data, as you
have your potty training journaland you pretty much you know
you're seeing the pattern andyou can kind of predict when the
(28:55):
puppy, when the dog, needs togo pee or poop, and so you get
them outside at the right timeand you get out there.
They're not distracted.
You give them their fiveminutes and nothing happens.
They don't go.
What do you do?
Do you stay out there longer?
Well, maybe, but if you do,don't stay out there more than
(29:16):
maybe a minute or two longer.
But here's the thing If you feelpretty certain, based on your
data, that hey, the puppy ordog's got to go, but yet we went
out here and it's not.
This is what I want you to do.
Bring the puppy, bring the dogback in, put it in the crate for
15 minutes.
Yeah, again, you can give it atoy, some kind of activity to do
(29:41):
a bully stick.
But then, after 15 minutes,bring the puppy or dog right
back outside for another fiveminutes of undistracted potty
time to see if they'll go.
And if they still don't go and,based on your data, you are
certain they have to go yeah,bring them right back in, put
(30:01):
them back in the crate for 15minutes.
It's not a punishment, guys.
We're not putting them in thecrate for punishment.
They should love their crate.
Their crate should be a safeplace.
You should have their favoritetoys in there.
There should be nothingpunishing about going in the
crate.
All we're doing is identifyingthe fact that man, I really
(30:23):
think this puppy is going to goand I don't want there to be an
accident.
Yet we took it outside.
It didn't.
Therefore, I'm going to goahead and put it in its crate.
Now, if I did that two or threetimes and the puppy or dog still
didn't go, I'm going to askmyself some questions.
Did the puppy or dog, was thevolume of water or the volume of
(30:47):
food much less For some reason.
You got to pay attention tothat too.
The other thing that you needto take a look at is the puppy,
in this case a puppy.
Is the puppy maturing?
Is the bladder able to holdurine longer?
(31:09):
Is it getting stronger?
Is the bladder muscles gettingstronger?
What about the bowels?
Are they get?
Are those muscles gettingstronger?
Are they able to hold it longer?
Because it's going to happen asthey get older.
What's going to happen isyou're going to find that in
your data that will come out,because the time differential
(31:32):
between when they drink and pee,when they eat and poop, is
going to change.
That's a normal thing to do.
When it comes to potty training,one of the things that I like
to do is I like to put it on cue.
If I ask the dog, if I watchpeople go out there, go potty,
(31:55):
go potty the puppy, the dog'snot going potty and they don't
know what that means.
Here's the trick behind it Letthem engage in the behavior of
peeing or pooping While they arein the act of peeing or pooping
, I want you to label thatbehavior, quietly, quietly, and
(32:20):
I want you to repeat it like amantra.
My label, my cue for going tothe bathroom is hurry.
When I'm training a new puppyor dog and they begin to go to
the bathroom very quietly, justloud enough that they can hear
it, I go hurry, hurry, hurry,hurry, hurry.
(32:40):
The whole time while they'regoing, as soon as they stop, as
soon as they come up from thesquat, I stop saying hurry and I
mark that behavior and I rewardthe dog.
Now, if you don't know what Ijust meant when I said mark the
behavior, I'm talking aboutusing a marker training system.
(33:04):
A clicker is one type of marker.
Some people use a verbal markerlike yes, but it's something
that gets conditioned to thepositive reinforcement In this
case food, and it's about timing.
You've literally got about ahalf a second to a second to get
the food in the dog's mouth inorder for them to connect the
dots why they're getting it Allright.
(33:26):
So a lot of times we're latewith getting the reward to the
puppy or dog.
Oh, they like the food.
But whether they're connectingthe dots cognitively why they're
getting it Well, that'sdebatable if you don't have good
timing.
Well, using markers allows usto, in very perfect timing mark
(33:48):
the behavior that we like, thatwe want and that sends a signal.
That marker is conditioned.
So the dog knows when it hearsthe clicker or hears a verbal
marker like, yes, I'm getting atreat, and then we've got a
little bit of time to get thefood reward to the dog when
we're using markers.
If you don't use markers, youshould be.
(34:10):
Where you can learn about thisis by going to my website.
Go to dogbehavioristcom.
I've got like 85 training andbehavior articles.
You need to be checking thoseall out there.
Great.
Go to dogbehavioristcom.
Go to the menu.
Find articles.
Click on that.
Now there's an article onclicker training and it's all
(34:35):
about using markers and trainingand at the bottom of that
article I've got a whole audiopodcast an hour long going
through detail how do you usemarkers and training.
You're going to be much moresuccessful if you use markers,
so I encourage you to check thatout.
Go to my website,dogbehavioristcom.
(34:57):
Go to articles.
Find the article on clickertraining.
Read through that.
At the bottom of that article,listen to the podcast on using
markers in training and thengive that a shot, all right.
Now, when do you know thatyou're puppy?
(35:18):
When do you know that your dogis potty trained?
Well, the way I look at it, ifI can go about two and a half,
three months without an accident, I think we're pretty much
there.
That's kind of my cutoff Twomonths, two and a half, three
(35:42):
months no accident.
Yeah, I think we've got it.
That's when maybe now you don'tneed to supervise at all times
and when you can't confine thedog.
All right.
But let's say that you do thatyou give more freedom and
accidents start to happen again.
Well, you got to go back to stepone.
(36:04):
You got to start over.
You didn't spend enough timeconditioning the fact that, hey,
I want you to go to thebathroom outside.
You do that.
Wonderful things happen.
You get little pieces of hotdog or cheese or chicken.
Make sure you're rewarding yourdog really really well.
Make sure you're cleaning upaccidents really well so that
(36:25):
the dog doesn't want to go backto it because it can smell it.
Right, using an enzyme-basedcleaner is critical.
And check.
And if you're really strugglingagain, I'll mention it again.
You can purchase my book HouseTraining 101, potty Training
Unleashed.
You can find that on Amazon oryou can find that on my website
(36:47):
at dogbehavioristcom.
Okay, so we've gone two and ahalf three months without an
accident and we think we're goodto go.
What are our next steps?
Well, even when you thinkthings are going well and now
you're not supervising as much,right you want, every night I
(37:10):
would go through the house withthe black light.
Keep yourself, keep the doghonest, okay, because it they'll
sneak away.
They'll sneak away and gosomewhere else and you won't
know it.
So I'm going to use that blacklight every single night until I
(37:31):
can go, several months and I'mnot having accidents.
It's just a quick littleinspection through the house
with the black light.
It takes you about two minutes,that's all.
We talked about putting this oncure command.
So when they go, I startrepeating my mantra hurry, hurry
, hurry.
You can't be too loud, becauseif you're too loud you're going
(37:54):
to interrupt them and they'renot going to finish going to the
bathroom, and you don't wantthat.
And you don't reward the puppyor dog until after they come up
from the squat, but immediatelyafter.
So if they're lifting their leg, as soon as that leg comes down
, boom, mark and reward.
If they're squatting, as soonas they come up, mark and reward
.
But while they've got their leglifted, while they're squatting
(38:17):
, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry,hurry, hurry.
Okay, if I start doing that, bythe time I've got my two and a
half to three months of noaccidents.
Now I can ask them to go to thebathroom on cue or command and
(38:41):
that is going to be hurry, hurry, hurry.
Why do I do that?
Well, let's say that we'retraveling.
You know, some dogs are alittle strange.
They are comfortable going tothe bathroom at home or on a
walk, but not in a strangelocation, and I don't want to
(39:03):
have to be messing around withthis.
So it's a great idea to capturethat behavior label, that
behavior mark and reward whenthey actually are finished and
then down the road you'll beable to use that cue that you're
just using as a label right nowas a cue to get the puppy or
(39:25):
dog to go to the bathroom.
Yeah, all right, let's talkabout some other things.
Let's talk about diarrhea.
Okay, Listen, if your puppy oryour dog has diarrhea, that is
not an accident.
That is not a potty trainingaccident.
Okay, that is a GI upset andthat's something that, if it
(39:49):
doesn't clear up right away, youneed to consult with your
veterinarian.
Okay, so don't be hard on yourpuppy or dog.
If they got loose stool, ifthey've got diarrhea, all right,
all right, let's talk about adog or a puppy that just can't
get enough water, justabsolutely drinks like crazy
(40:12):
constantly and just peas likecrazy PPP, just constantly
peeing and peeing a lot.
Well, get that puppy, get thatdog into the vet.
Make sure that we're notdealing with any blood sugar
issues, diabetes.
Now, I'm not a veterinarian, Ican't give out medical advice
and I'm not.
That's why I'm saying if you'reexperiencing that, take your
(40:36):
puppy or dog to the vet to ruleout any medical issues.
The same thing if there's a lotof urgency to go and your puppy
or dog was holding it, now allof a sudden they can't make it
to the door, so to speak, andit's happening a lot and maybe
there's even a foul smell to it.
Is there a bladder infection?
(40:58):
Is there a UTI?
You know that can happen.
So again, when things areunusual like that, you want to
make sure to get your puppy oryour dog into the veterinarian,
rule out any possible medicalcontributing factors.
Okay, because those things theydefinitely.
They definitely happen.
All right, there's a couple morethings I want to talk about in
(41:20):
terms of potty training and thatis going to be fearful or
submissive urination and in somecases even defecation and
excitable urination.
When puppies are small andsometimes it doesn't matter size
if they get overstimulated, ifthey get too excited before
(41:46):
their bladders are mature, theymay leak, they may lose control
of the bladder.
That is not an accident.
That is not an accident.
That's an unconscious reflex.
Okay, do not punish thatthere's nothing you can do about
it.
Accept, accept, stop theexcitability.
(42:10):
You know it happens a lot wherepeople will come home.
The dog gets really excited andloses its bladder control and
peace.
So the way that you do thatwhen you come in, if your dog
gets excited, stop, freeze likea tree, just freeze.
Be very, still, very quiet,wait for the puppy, wait for the
(42:32):
dog to calm down.
Then take a step or two.
If the puppy or dog starts toget excited again, stop again
and freeze like a tree and onlymove when the puppy or dog is
calm.
Now you're going to need to dothat for a little while.
It's not like you are, you know, going to be able to do that
(42:57):
once and you know expect success.
Okay, every time when you comehome, when the puppy or dog is
excited, freeze like a tree, notjust necessarily when you come
home, that can be anytime.
You know guests come over.
You got to inform them what todo.
(43:18):
Eventually the puppy is goingto get older, the bladder will
get, those muscles will getstronger and typically that
works itself out.
Now some dogs have it really bad.
I mean it can.
I've seen it go on until somedogs were up to nine months of
age, and then I've seen it gobeyond that and I've seen dogs
(43:41):
that had such weak excuse mebladders that they needed to go
in to see the vet and they'vegot medication.
But listen, I don't want you tothink, just because you're
struggling with potty training,that you need to give your dog
medication for its bladder.
No, those are in special cases,special situations, and that's
(44:05):
for the vet to decide, not me,not you.
So the other thing besidesexcitable urination is
submissive or fearful urination.
So some dogs are verysubmissive, some dogs frightened
very easily and they can losecontrol of their bladder.
(44:26):
That again, that's not a pottyaccident.
That is an unconscious act andthat is something that you have
to begin to desensitize thepuppy or dog to those things
that are triggers that it causesthe puppy or dog to become
submissive or fearful, whichthen in turn causes the puppy or
(44:50):
dog to lose control of itsbladder.
All right, now let me talk aboutdog doors.
For me personally, I think thedog door is the greatest
invention ever made to help withpotty training, and I do this
(45:11):
with every one of my puppies,every one of my dogs.
I buy a crate.
I make sure there are.
It's a two door dog crate.
I remove one of the doors onthe crate.
My house has a dog door.
All my homes that I've lived inhave dog doors.
I take the crate, that doorthat I took off, I'm going to
(45:36):
take that and I'm going to takethe crate that doesn't have the
door, that opening where thedoor would be, and I'm going to
push it up against the dog door.
So think about it.
Let's say, I put the puppy ordog in the crate.
Now the puppy or dog has theability to go outside, they have
(45:57):
the ability to come back in,but they don't have the ability
to have accidents in the house.
And one of the ways that I loveto potty train is through
teaching the dog door.
And when I can't supervise, Ican put them in the crate and
they go out the dog door andthey go to the bathroom.
(46:17):
Now I will tell you, initially,when I'm potty training, I
don't use the dog door unlessit's a huge struggle.
Because, first and foremost,think about it.
If they're using the dog door,what are you not doing?
You're not out there to rewardthem.
So where's the positivereinforcement for going to the
(46:40):
bathroom in the correct place.
See, I believe that needs tohappen first and then, once that
happens, now you can start toteach the dog door and now they
can start to use it.
And I'll tell you, there'snothing better, absolutely
nothing better, than having adog door and not having to get
(47:03):
up, open the door and let thedog outside.
It's a great invention.
I highly recommend get a dogdoor Now.
I've had some people say oh,what about safety?
I don't want people breaking inthe house.
Let me tell you something Ifsomebody's going to break in
your house, they're going tobreak in your house.
(47:23):
That dog door is not going tobe the thing that's going to be.
Oh, I'm only going to breakinto houses that have dog doors,
okay.
And when they hear the dogsbarking, they're probably going
to turn around and run Robbers,burglars.
They don't like to go intohomes where there's dogs.
They don't know what they'regoing to encounter when they do
(47:46):
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All right, let's get back intothe potty training I want to
talk about.
You know, in some cases, let'ssay you've got a toy breed.
Let's say that maybe you livein an apartment.
Okay, in some of thosesituations, some people like to
(49:13):
train their dogs to go to thebathroom on pee pads, or maybe
they teach them to go in alitter box, or they get some
other type of turf.
Okay, they've got these boxesthat are elevated with fake turf
on them.
They even got self-cleaners.
I mean it can be prettysophisticated.
(49:34):
Now, typically typically thisis just me I try to dissuade
people from training theirpuppies or training their dogs
to use pads or go in a litterbox or something like that in
the house, because I believe Ibelieve that part of what it
(49:55):
teaches is that it's okay to goin the house and I've seen lots
of these puppies, lots of thesedogs make mistakes and go
elsewhere.
But with really good training,with really good consistency and
repetition, patience,understanding and compassion,
you can get that done All right,it wouldn't matter whether it's
(50:17):
a potty pad, it doesn't matterif it's a litter box.
Okay, one of the things that Ilike to do when I'm doing that,
especially what I like to do ifI'm doing pee pad training when
the puppy goes to the bathroomeither an accident, or the puppy
goes to the bathroom outsideI'm going to take a pee pad and
(50:38):
I'm going to soak up that urineand I'm going to keep that pee
pad with that soaked up urinepretty fresh, so like when it
gets stale, like two days laterI'm going to soak up another pee
pad with the Puppy or Dog'surine Because I need that scent.
I want that scent to kind ofdraw them over to it.
(51:00):
So it just kind of helps, kindof as a scent lure to where I
want them to go to the bathroom.
A lot of times too, I'm helpingwhere I'm doing pee pads.
I start off with a very largearea.
So I've got several pee padsput together, all right, and I
bring the puppy into the middleof that and I've got their drag
(51:25):
line that I'm holding very loose.
But if they start to step offof the potty pad now remember,
imagine, I've got, you know,like a three foot by four foot
area.
Then I've got all potty padslaid out and I put the puppy in
the middle.
I'm holding onto their leash orthat light piece of rope only
(51:47):
to guide them back on the peepads if they step off.
Okay, same rules apply If theygo to the bathroom.
I'm going to mark and reward asthey start going to the
bathroom.
I'm going to label it.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, remember,yeah.
And the one thing I'm not goingto do is I'm not going to just
pick up those pads right awaydown the road Once the puppy's
(52:11):
trained.
Yeah, I'm not going to keepsoiled pads down just because of
hygiene issues.
Now, the same thing for pooping.
Look, if the puppy has anaccident, it poops in the house,
so the puppy poops outside.
I'm going to take that poop,I'm going to put it on the pad
and guide the puppy over there.
I'm doing everything the same.
I've got my potty trainingjournal, my potty log.
(52:34):
I'm supervising or confining,marking and rewarding when
they're going to the bathroom.
The only difference is, insteadof going outside, I'm putting
them on a potty pad, or insteadof going outside, I'm putting
them in a litter box.
Now, when I do a litter box, Iget a large tub it's really not
(52:55):
a litter box and I put thelitter in there.
Again, I need the area to bebig to start with.
Once they understand to go inthat litter, once they
understand to go on the pad, now, little by little, I can shrink
the size of that down to onepee pad.
Little by little I can shrinkthe size of that tub where I've
(53:17):
got the litter in it, the littermaterial in it, make that
smaller till we get to the pointwhere it's just a regular
litter box.
So you can do that too.
Now what about the older dog?
Guess what, guys?
If you've got an older dogunless they are incontinent
(53:40):
because of age, and some, ifyou've got a really old dog and
the dog was doing great and thenall of a sudden it starts
having accidents, get the dog tothe vet.
Let's make sure everything'sokay there.
But when it comes to older dogs, the rules are exactly the same
.
You treat it as if that olderdog, even though it was potty
(54:02):
trained and now it's havingaccidents, you start from
scratch as if it was never pottytrained.
That's exact.
Because here's the thing thedog doesn't know better.
I know some of you think thatthey are doing it just to spite
you.
I know some of you think thatwhen you come home and you look
at them, they're showing youguilt.
(54:22):
That is not what's happening.
I can't get into the dynamicsof what's really happening, but
that is not guilt.
They know they're about readyto get in trouble because that's
something that has happened dayin and day out.
So when you come home, thatlook of what you think is guilt
(54:43):
is fear and anxiety typically,and we've done studies so we
know it's not guilt.
We've done scientific studies.
But your older dog is nottrying to spite you.
It's not that they're stubborn,it's that we've got to teach
them for whatever reason.
Maybe they got sick andcouldn't help it and went to the
(55:08):
bathroom in the house and nowthey think, oh, I can go both
places, outside and inside.
Then you've got a puppy or dogthat you've successfully potty
trained and they start havingaccidents again.
First think about is there apotential medical contributing
factor?
Possibly get them into the vet.
If you've ruled all that out,you've got to start from scratch
(55:30):
with potty training.
What about marking?
You know, I get people thatcontact me and say, oh, my dog's
potty trained, but we've got aproblem with the dog marking in
the house.
Guess what?
The dog's not potty trained.
Does it make a difference thatthey're lifting their leg?
I mean, I know what you'resaying.
(55:51):
You know they're markingterritory.
Maybe, maybe, but it doesn'tmatter.
What are the rules we're tryingto teach?
The rules we're trying to teachis you don't go to the bathroom
in the house, you go to thebathroom outside, and that
includes marking.
(56:11):
So if you've got a dog that'smarking and you think, hey, I
don't have a potty trainingissue, you're wrong.
You've got a potty trainingissue and you need to start from
scratch, and if you do that,you are going to have success.
Let me tell you something Ifyou follow these guidelines, you
(56:34):
can't help but have success.
The only people that don't havesuccess are the people that
don't do the work, and some ofthe greatest assets you can have
are patience, patience,patience and understanding.
So there you have it, folks.
(56:55):
There's the crash course in howto potty train any dog.
Remember, if you're struggling,go to Amazon, pick up my book,
house Training 101, pottyTraining Unleashed.
Please subscribe If you lovewhat we do.
Give us a five-star review.
Have a great day everybody.
I'm outta here.
There's nothing worse than having a puppy or a dog.
Think that it's okay to use thehouse as a toilet.
Did you get a new puppy?
Or maybe you got a new dogduring the holidays?
We're going to be talking allabout how do you potty train
even the most stubborn anddifficult puppy and older dog.
(00:24):
Don't go anywhere.
We're going to unpack all ofthis in 60 seconds.
Good day dog lovers.
(01:09):
I'm Will Bangura.
Hey, thanks for joining me foranother episode of dog training
today.
Did you get a new dog duringthe holidays?
Or maybe you've already got adog, but you've been struggling
with trying to potty train apuppy or a dog.
I'm going to take this entirepodcast to talk about how you
(01:32):
can potty train the moststubborn puppy, the most
stubborn dog and, for some ofyou, if you've got an older dog,
trust me that old adage youcan't teach an old dog new
tricks.
If that's not true, we canteach an old dog how to potty in
the correct spot and no longeruse the house as a toilet.
(01:53):
So let's talk about let's talkabout potty training, the number
one rule, the number one rulein potty training.
Write this down the dog or thepuppy needs to be in your
eyesight.
You need to be supervising thedog or puppy with the potty
(02:18):
training problem at all times.
I know it sounds daunting, it'sreally not.
But if you can't watch thepuppy or dog, if you can't
supervise, if you have to takeyour eyes off of them, and I
mean even for 10 seconds, youneed to put them in the crate,
(02:38):
you need to confine them.
If you haven't done cratetraining, it's pretty much kind
of an essential.
When it comes to potty training,the whole idea is that most
dogs, most puppies, are notgoing to soil their den, and
part of that is making sure thatyou get the right size crate.
(02:59):
You know a lot of people aregetting crates that are way too
big.
The size of the crate shouldonly be as big as the puppy or
dog.
What do I mean by that?
So if your dog, if your puppyis laying down or standing up,
they're not squished together.
There's enough room from thebase of the tail to the tip of
(03:21):
their nose for them to laycomfortably, but not a whole lot
more If there's a lot of room,if it's a large, super large
crate, hey, some dogs, somepuppies, they'll just go in the
corner.
Yep, they'll go in the cornerof the crate.
They'll pee, they'll poop there.
And now now we've got anotherproblem, because now we can't
even use that when we can'tsupervise right.
(03:44):
But the number one rulesupervise or confine, and that's
so that your puppy, your dog,can't continue to rehearse the
unwanted behavior of using thehouse as a toilet, of going to
the bathroom in the house.
That's just going to keep ongetting more and more and more
(04:07):
conditioned.
So part of what we need to dois think about how can we create
the most success and the leastfailure, and we're going to talk
about this.
Oh and, by the way, if youreally want to understand potty
(04:30):
training, you can go to Amazon.
I've wrote a 350 odd page bookall on potty training older dogs
, younger dogs, puppies, dogsthat need to have pee pads in
the house or a special spotoutside.
(04:51):
So you can go to Amazon.
If you want to get thedefinitive guide, you can get my
book, house Training 101.
Potty Training Unleashed byWill Bangura.
Again, that's House Training101.
Potty Training Unleashed byWill Bangura.
You can also go to my websiteat dogbehavioristcom.
(05:12):
Look for the in the menu, thelink that says books, and you
can find my book on pottytraining there as well.
But I like to give back to thecommunity.
Not everybody can affordtraining.
You guys could certainly affordthe book, but here's some free
content for you, because nobodylikes dealing.
(05:32):
You know, when I talk to petparents, what they hate the most
and what they want to be donewith the quickest is potty
training.
All right, so we already talkedabout that.
There is a need for cratetraining and I'm not going to
talk about how to crate train inthis particular podcast.
(05:56):
And, by the way, if you'relistening to this podcast,
please make sure that yousubscribe so that you never miss
any of the dog training todaypodcast Hit subscribe.
Please share this with yourfriends and if you love what we
do, please give us a five starreview.
That helps our rankings gohigher, which means that more
people get to benefit from thisinformation.
(06:17):
All right, so crate training isa must.
We're going to kind of fastforward, assuming that you're
either going to learn how tocrate train, or you know how to
crate train, or your puppy ordog is already crate trained.
Now let me say this Any timeyou need to put your puppy or
your dog in the crate and you'rein the process of still potty
(06:39):
training your pet.
You need to make sure thatbefore you put your puppy or dog
in the crate, that you takethem outside, give them the
opportunity to relievethemselves.
And here's the thing abouttaking your dog or puppy outside
.
What I like to do when I getout there I'm watching the puppy
(07:00):
or dog and I'm very slowly justwalking back and forth, just
kind of pacing very slowly, notengaging with the puppy or dog.
I don't want them to bedistracted.
I'm trying to get them to movearound, put their nose to the
ground, find that special spotthat all puppies and dogs need
to find right to go to thebathroom and have success out
(07:23):
there.
If your puppy, if your dog isnot distracted when you take
them outside to use the bathroom, only keep them out there for
about five minutes.
You know I watch people bringtheir puppy, their dog out there
for 10, 15, 20, 30, 35, 40, anhour.
That's insane.
(07:44):
If your puppy or dog is notdistracted, if they're sniffing
on the ground, most likely, inmost cases, they're going to go
to the bathroom within fiveminutes.
Now some dogs they're going toget some puppies are going to
get very distracted when theyget outside, you may have to
(08:05):
wait out a period of time andstart that watch, start that
timer of five minutes when thepuppy or dog settles down.
If they go outside right awayand they're distracted doing all
kinds of things, you can'tcount that as the five minutes.
It has to be non-distracted.
Five minutes, alright, one ofthe critical things that needs
(08:32):
to happen.
Your dog needs to have apaycheck.
Your puppy needs to have a veryhigh value reward when it goes
to the bathroom in the correctspot.
That's one of the ways thatpuppies, that's one of the ways
that dogs learn and that wecreate behaviors and we
condition behaviors.
There's a payoff.
When a behavior has a function,then that behavior also has
(08:57):
value because there's a payout.
Dogs, puppies, any animalthey're going to be more apt to
want to repeat that behavior.
So, preparation for pottytraining when you wake up in the
morning, you should have atreat pouch on you.
You should have a bunch ofextremely high value food awards
(09:17):
.
I'm talking something extremelyyummy, listen.
The more your puppy and doglikes the food reward, the more
your puppy and dog is going tobe motivated to go to the
bathroom outside, which meansthat you're going to be done
with this quicker and you canregain your house back and it
doesn't have to continue to be atoilet.
(09:38):
Alright, so high value foodawards.
When you wake up in the morning, put that treat pouch on.
Leave the treat pouch on at alltimes until you go to bed or
until you leave the house.
You need to have that Listenfor all kinds of other manners
issues and just teaching the dogdifferent, appropriate manners
(10:00):
within the house.
You should have a treat pouchon anyway until your dog is
trained.
Don't bribe your dog by havingthe food in your hand.
Put it in the treat pouch.
Give the food to the puppy ordog after they do the behavior,
(10:20):
immediately after.
I don't like to bribe with food.
Think about that treat pouch.
It's like a wallet or a purse.
Okay, the behavior happens orthe work happens.
Then you reach in that walletor purse and pay for the job
well done.
In this case it's not a purse,it's not a wallet, it's a treat
pouch and the pay is high valuefood rewards.
(10:42):
Okay.
Now some of you will tell mehey, my dog's not food motivated
.
Baloney, every dog is foodmotivated.
You just didn't find the rightkind of food, unless you've got
a dog that's constantly in astate of high anxiety or panic
and then their appetite shutsdown.
That's a different.
(11:02):
That's a whole different ballgame.
All right, we talked about cratetraining.
We talked about needing to havea treat pouch having high value
food rewards.
We talked about that.
The number one rule is you haveto have the puppy or the dog in
your eyesight at all times.
You have to be able to seewhere they're at, have to be
(11:26):
able to supervise, and when youcan't, you must crate the puppy
or dog.
And I'm not a fan of X-pens andI'm not a fan of, you know,
giving the puppy or dog its ownroom, like the laundry room or
something like that.
It's too big.
Those areas are way too big topotty train.
(11:46):
You need to use a crate andthere are some very specific
things in order to have success.
Now, when I wrote my book HouseTraining 101, potty Training
Unleashed which, by the way,I'll plug it again, you can get
that on Amazon I wrote that bookas if I had the most difficult
(12:12):
dog in the world to potty train,so that anybody and everybody
could have success if theypicked up a copy of House
Training 101.
I'm going to give you some ofthe highlights here.
I obviously can't, in a podcast, read 350, some odd pages, so
(12:33):
if you're really struggling,think about possibly looking at
getting my book.
All right, supervisor, confined, number one rule.
Now let me tell you what makesthat a little bit easier Letting
your puppy or dog drag a leasharound.
(12:55):
I don't like leashes.
I actually like to.
As far as dragging leashes, Ilike to get about three or four
feet of light rope and I like toattach a metal leash clasp to
that light rope, hook that totheir harness or collar and
they're just dragging thataround as they're moving around.
Why do I like that?
Because they don't know whatall the rules are right now and
(13:20):
I may need to guide the puppy ordog, and it sure makes life a
whole lot easier.
I need to be supervising orconfining.
So what happens if I need to gofrom one room to the next and
let's say that my new puppy ordog's name is Bobo and I go Bobo
, let's go and I start moving toa different room?
(13:41):
What if Bobo doesn't follow?
I want to be able to take thatI call it a drag line that light
rope that's again three or fourfeet long, with a leash clasp
on it, attached to their collaror harness.
I'm just going to grab that andjust guide them with me to go
where I'm going, because, again,I've got to keep them in my
eyesight, all right, all right,let's talk about what do you do.
(14:06):
What do you do?
What do you do if there's anaccident?
First of all, if there's anaccident and you did not see it
happen, in the act, there isnothing you can do other than
clean it up.
And we're going to talk aboutcleaning up in just a little bit
(14:29):
, all right.
But what you want to do ifyou're witnessing the puppy or
dog going to the bathroom in thehouse in the act, you're just
going to go ahead and guide thepuppy or dog outside to see if
(14:51):
they can finish and if they do,you're going to reward them.
Now, the one thing you're notgoing to hear me say is punish
your dog for going to thebathroom in the house.
The one thing you're not goingto hear me say is go ahead and
rub its nose in its mess.
That is old school folks.
(15:12):
No modern educated dog trainers, behavior consultants,
behaviorists ever do that.
First of all, you're creating alot of anxiety and stress.
You are associating thatanxiety and stress with yourself
and you're trying to build abond and a relationship with
this new puppy or dog.
(15:32):
But if you're causing fear,pain and intimidation because
you're punishing the dog forhaving an accident, it's not
going to help much in terms ofteaching the dog where to go and
if your timing is not perfect,the puppy or dog won't
understand why it's happening inthe first place.
But here's the bottom line.
We know from study after studyafter study, science, science,
(15:58):
science.
You can use positivereinforcement to train in any
behavior and you can usepositive reinforcement to train
out any unwanted behavior.
You don't need to usepunishment.
So if you're talking to anothertrainer, if you're talking to a
behavior consultant orbehaviorist and they're telling
(16:19):
you hey, you need to correct thedog, you need to punish the dog
, you need to walk away fromthem.
It's not that they're badpeople, they just don't know
what they're talking about.
And again, if any trainer saysto you positive reinforcement
doesn't work, here's the deal.
They just don't know how tomake it work.
They're just not that skilledin positive reinforcement.
(16:42):
Hey, I'll give you this.
You have to have greater skills, you have to be a better
trainer to use positivereinforcement, but the benefits
in terms of the bonding thatyou're going to do with your pet
and that relationship thatyou're going to have.
And you know there's this hugerisk when you use punishment
(17:06):
that there can be long termrepercussions, creating anxiety
and fear and all kinds ofproblems.
But I want you to think aboutthis how fair is it, how fair is
it to punish an animal that hasabsolutely no clue what the
rules are?
We need to take the time toteach them where it is.
(17:31):
We would like them to go to thebathroom, because the dog, the
puppy's just being a dog, it'sjust being a puppy.
They got to go, they go.
They're DNA, they're genetics.
Doesn't tell them.
Oh, you know, if you're in ahouse, let's go outside and not
make a mess.
We've got to teach that.
So oftentimes people arecorrecting and punishing their
(17:53):
puppies and dogs for just beinga puppy, being a dog and not
knowing what your rules arebecause you didn't take the time
to teach them.
Okay, all right, we talkedabout that drag line.
Listen, let me say one morething about the crate, because
this is where a lot of accidentshappen, and then I'll get back
to telling you what you need todo when there is an accident
(18:16):
other than, hey, don't punish.
Okay, you're going to take thepuppy, get him back outside.
You are going to see if theyneed to void more, go to the
bathroom more, keep them outthere for five minutes of
undistracted time and then, whenyou come back in, go ahead and
put them in their crate and thenclean up the mess.
(18:39):
Now you need to make sure thatyou're using a really good
cleaner, because you know dog'ssense of smell is just
incredible.
You know cleaning supplies thatget rid of the smell for you
and I, for us humans will notget rid of the smell for the
dogs.
I mean literally, they cansmell one drop of blood diluted
in a 55 gallon barrel of water.
(19:02):
Okay, their sense of smell iscrazy, crazy good.
So you need to find a productthat's enzyme based.
I like SCOEX 10X, SCOE 10X youcan get that at SCOE10Xcom and
10 is 1-0.
Nature's miracle.
(19:23):
A lot of people have heard ofthat.
Follow the directions on thebottle, just you know.
Guess on how to use it, becauseit makes a big difference when
you use it the correct way.
And let me just give you thisbig tip If you're potty training
and a dog or a puppy, make sureyou've got a black light.
(19:43):
We'll come back to the blacklight, because the black light
if there's an accident and let'ssay it dried up and you can't
see it right.
Well, if you go through thehouse with a black light,
they'll light up like aChristmas tree Everywhere.
The dog went to the bathroom.
You're going to see this bright, like yellowish stain, come up
with the black light.
(20:03):
And I tell you to get a blacklight because that keeps you
honest, because here, rememberwhat I said.
Number one rule keep the puppyor dog in your eyesight, and
when you can't, you need toconfine in the crate.
Well, how well did you do that?
You know, if every evening, atthe end of the evening, you go
through the house with a blacklight, you start finding areas
(20:24):
where your puppy or dog went tothe bathroom.
Guess what?
You didn't follow rule numberone, did you?
And here's the thing I want totell you it can be exhausting to
have to follow a new puppyaround and to keep your eyes on
a puppy at all time.
I never want you to feel guiltyabout needing a break and
(20:47):
having that puppy or dog go toits crate.
You can give it a toy, you cangive it a chew like a bully
stick or something like that tokeep it busy.
But you may need breaks andit's okay to do that.
You know there are.
If you're like me and you get onthe couch and you're watching
(21:09):
TV, it doesn't take long beforeI start dozing off.
If I've got a dog or a puppy,then I'm potty training and I
start feeling myself dozing off.
Hey, I better get up and Ibetter crate the puppy or dog,
because if I fall asleep I'm notthere to supervise right.
And even if let's say that thephone rings and it's an
(21:29):
important call and you reallyneed to pay attention, you need
to tell the caller hey, hold ona second, hold on and then go
crate your dog and then go backto the call and when the call is
done you can take the puppy orthe dog out of the crate.
The reason we're doing this isto avoid accidents.
(21:50):
Remember, we want to have asfew accidents as possible and as
many successes as possible.
So supervisor confine is huge.
Let's say you need to use therestroom.
You got to go to the bathroom.
Well, a lot of people will justdo that and not crate the puppy
or dog and then they come outof the bathroom only to find an
(22:12):
accident happened.
So think about all all theselittle short duration situations
where you might not be able topay attention to the dog or
puppy, where you need to confinethem.
Telephone rings important callGot to go to the restroom.
Somebody comes to the door.
Hold on a second.
(22:34):
You know they're knocking onthe door.
Hold on a second.
Create the puppy, create thedog and then go deal with who's
at the door.
Maybe there's somebody that'scoming to the house to do some
repair work on something.
Tell them to wait, put up thedog.
These things are really crucial.
(22:55):
They're little, they're tinylittle tips, but boy, these are
gems, these are diamonds.
This is going to be thedifference between success and
failure.
All right, the next thing let'stalk about keeping a journal.
Remember, I said I'm going toapproach this as if I've got a
(23:17):
puppy or a dog.
That's the most difficult puppyor dog in the world to potty
train.
All right, there's a couple ofthings I want to do.
Number one I want to feed on aschedule.
I'm going to feed at the sametime every day.
I'm going to set the food downfor five or 10 minutes and then
I'm picking it up and it's notgoing back down until the next
(23:41):
scheduled feeding.
And again, I'm going to feed atthe same time every day.
I'm also going to offer waterwith meals and 10 minutes after
that's down, that also getspicked up.
Now, throughout the day I amgoing to offer water, but I'm
(24:07):
not leaving water down for thepuppy or dog to drink at any
time they want.
I'm not leaving food down forthem to graze and free feed.
Water and food are scheduled.
I'm going to write down in mypotty training journal what time
(24:27):
it is when my puppy or dogdrinks.
Every time they drink.
I'm going to write in my pottytraining journal what time it is
when my puppy or dog eats,every single time they eat.
I'm also going to collectreally important data.
I don't know Maybe some of youknow where I'm going with this.
(24:48):
Every time the puppy or doggoes to the bathroom, I'm going
to mark it down what was thattime.
In my potty training journalI'm going to differentiate Did
the dog go potty, did it go poop, was it an accident or was it a
success?
And I'm going to keep thisjournal and I'm going to keep on
(25:14):
putting that information inthere while I'm potty training?
Why, listen, if you feed on aschedule, if you give water on a
schedule and you keep a pottytraining journal, you are going
to find a pattern.
I don't know what the patternis going to be.
Let me just make one up, butthere's going to be a pattern.
Let's say your puppy or dogdrinks and you're collecting
(25:39):
data, you're writing down whattime it drinks and you're
writing down what time it eitherhas an accident or a success,
whether it's pee or poop.
How long after your puppy ordog drinks does it typically
need to pee?
How long after your puppy ordog typically eats, does it need
to poop?
If you're feeding on a schedule, if you're giving water on a
(26:02):
schedule and you're collectingthat data, you are going to find
a pattern.
And now you're going to be ableto pretty, pretty, pretty well
predict when this puppy, whenthis dog, is needing to go to
the bathroom.
And that is huge.
That is huge for us to preventaccidents.
(26:22):
It's huge for us to be able tocreate as much success having
the ability to set a timer.
Maybe it is your smartphone orsomething, but if my data says,
hey, 30 minutes after my dogdrinks, it's going to go to the
bathroom.
I'm going to set my timer forlike 20, 25 minutes and I'm
(26:46):
going to get that puppy outsideso I can have more successes.
All right, that is crucial,absolutely crucial If you want
to make this go quickly, if youwant to be done with potty
training, keep a potty trainingjournal, keep a log.
(27:08):
Okay, that's absolutely one ofthe best things you can do to
have success potty training yourpuppy or your dog.
All right, have you ever had thesituation with your current
puppy or dog, or maybe one thatyou had in the past, where you
took it outside to go to thebathroom?
You watched it go to thebathroom, only to bring it back
(27:30):
in the house and it goes to thebathroom in the house within the
next five minutes.
Yeah, that happens, it does.
Why does that happen?
Well, some dogs, some puppies,do not empty their bladder in
one squat or one leg lift.
They may need to pee severaldifferent times to completely
(27:54):
empty their bladder.
And then there are some dogsthat don't empty their bowel
just with one squat.
You know they could if you keptthem out there.
They may walk around, movearound, and five minutes later
they're going again.
But when you keep a pottytraining journal and you start
(28:14):
seeing a pattern that, hey, thepuppy or dog went to the
bathroom outside, we broughtthem inside and within five
minutes, 10 minutes, they wentagain inside, that's important
data, that's importantinformation so that you can do
the right thing.
What does that tell you?
It tells you what I just saidYou've got a puppy, you've got a
dog that doesn't empty thebladder on the first shot.
(28:35):
That tells you you need to stayoutside a little longer.
A little longer.
Now, as you're doing this, asyou're collecting data, as you
have your potty training journaland you pretty much you know
you're seeing the pattern andyou can kind of predict when the
(28:55):
puppy, when the dog, needs togo pee or poop, and so you get
them outside at the right timeand you get out there.
They're not distracted.
You give them their fiveminutes and nothing happens.
They don't go.
What do you do?
Do you stay out there longer?
Well, maybe, but if you do,don't stay out there more than
(29:16):
maybe a minute or two longer.
But here's the thing If you feelpretty certain, based on your
data, that hey, the puppy ordog's got to go, but yet we went
out here and it's not.
This is what I want you to do.
Bring the puppy, bring the dogback in, put it in the crate for
15 minutes.
Yeah, again, you can give it atoy, some kind of activity to do
(29:41):
a bully stick.
But then, after 15 minutes,bring the puppy or dog right
back outside for another fiveminutes of undistracted potty
time to see if they'll go.
And if they still don't go and,based on your data, you are
certain they have to go yeah,bring them right back in, put
(30:01):
them back in the crate for 15minutes.
It's not a punishment, guys.
We're not putting them in thecrate for punishment.
They should love their crate.
Their crate should be a safeplace.
You should have their favoritetoys in there.
There should be nothingpunishing about going in the
crate.
All we're doing is identifyingthe fact that man, I really
(30:23):
think this puppy is going to goand I don't want there to be an
accident.
Yet we took it outside.
It didn't.
Therefore, I'm going to goahead and put it in its crate.
Now, if I did that two or threetimes and the puppy or dog still
didn't go, I'm going to askmyself some questions.
Did the puppy or dog, was thevolume of water or the volume of
(30:47):
food much less For some reason.
You got to pay attention tothat too.
The other thing that you needto take a look at is the puppy,
in this case a puppy.
Is the puppy maturing?
Is the bladder able to holdurine longer?
(31:09):
Is it getting stronger?
Is the bladder muscles gettingstronger?
What about the bowels?
Are they get?
Are those muscles gettingstronger?
Are they able to hold it longer?
Because it's going to happen asthey get older.
What's going to happen isyou're going to find that in
your data that will come out,because the time differential
(31:32):
between when they drink and pee,when they eat and poop, is
going to change.
That's a normal thing to do.
When it comes to potty training,one of the things that I like
to do is I like to put it on cue.
If I ask the dog, if I watchpeople go out there, go potty,
(31:55):
go potty the puppy, the dog'snot going potty and they don't
know what that means.
Here's the trick behind it Letthem engage in the behavior of
peeing or pooping While they arein the act of peeing or pooping
, I want you to label thatbehavior, quietly, quietly, and
(32:20):
I want you to repeat it like amantra.
My label, my cue for going tothe bathroom is hurry.
When I'm training a new puppyor dog and they begin to go to
the bathroom very quietly, justloud enough that they can hear
it, I go hurry, hurry, hurry,hurry, hurry.
(32:40):
The whole time while they'regoing, as soon as they stop, as
soon as they come up from thesquat, I stop saying hurry and I
mark that behavior and I rewardthe dog.
Now, if you don't know what Ijust meant when I said mark the
behavior, I'm talking aboutusing a marker training system.
(33:04):
A clicker is one type of marker.
Some people use a verbal markerlike yes, but it's something
that gets conditioned to thepositive reinforcement In this
case food, and it's about timing.
You've literally got about ahalf a second to a second to get
the food in the dog's mouth inorder for them to connect the
dots why they're getting it Allright.
(33:26):
So a lot of times we're latewith getting the reward to the
puppy or dog.
Oh, they like the food.
But whether they're connectingthe dots cognitively why they're
getting it Well, that'sdebatable if you don't have good
timing.
Well, using markers allows usto, in very perfect timing mark
(33:48):
the behavior that we like, thatwe want and that sends a signal.
That marker is conditioned.
So the dog knows when it hearsthe clicker or hears a verbal
marker like, yes, I'm getting atreat, and then we've got a
little bit of time to get thefood reward to the dog when
we're using markers.
If you don't use markers, youshould be.
(34:10):
Where you can learn about thisis by going to my website.
Go to dogbehavioristcom.
I've got like 85 training andbehavior articles.
You need to be checking thoseall out there.
Great.
Go to dogbehavioristcom.
Go to the menu.
Find articles.
Click on that.
Now there's an article onclicker training and it's all
(34:35):
about using markers and trainingand at the bottom of that
article I've got a whole audiopodcast an hour long going
through detail how do you usemarkers and training.
You're going to be much moresuccessful if you use markers,
so I encourage you to check thatout.
Go to my website,dogbehavioristcom.
(34:57):
Go to articles.
Find the article on clickertraining.
Read through that.
At the bottom of that article,listen to the podcast on using
markers in training and thengive that a shot, all right.
Now, when do you know thatyou're puppy?
(35:18):
When do you know that your dogis potty trained?
Well, the way I look at it, ifI can go about two and a half,
three months without an accident, I think we're pretty much
there.
That's kind of my cutoff Twomonths, two and a half, three
(35:42):
months no accident.
Yeah, I think we've got it.
That's when maybe now you don'tneed to supervise at all times
and when you can't confine thedog.
All right.
But let's say that you do thatyou give more freedom and
accidents start to happen again.
Well, you got to go back to stepone.
(36:04):
You got to start over.
You didn't spend enough timeconditioning the fact that, hey,
I want you to go to thebathroom outside.
You do that.
Wonderful things happen.
You get little pieces of hotdog or cheese or chicken.
Make sure you're rewarding yourdog really really well.
Make sure you're cleaning upaccidents really well so that
(36:25):
the dog doesn't want to go backto it because it can smell it.
Right, using an enzyme-basedcleaner is critical.
And check.
And if you're really strugglingagain, I'll mention it again.
You can purchase my book HouseTraining 101, potty Training
Unleashed.
You can find that on Amazon oryou can find that on my website
(36:47):
at dogbehavioristcom.
Okay, so we've gone two and ahalf three months without an
accident and we think we're goodto go.
What are our next steps?
Well, even when you thinkthings are going well and now
you're not supervising as much,right you want, every night I
(37:10):
would go through the house withthe black light.
Keep yourself, keep the doghonest, okay, because it they'll
sneak away.
They'll sneak away and gosomewhere else and you won't
know it.
So I'm going to use that blacklight every single night until I
(37:31):
can go, several months and I'mnot having accidents.
It's just a quick littleinspection through the house
with the black light.
It takes you about two minutes,that's all.
We talked about putting this oncure command.
So when they go, I startrepeating my mantra hurry, hurry
, hurry.
You can't be too loud, becauseif you're too loud you're going
(37:54):
to interrupt them and they'renot going to finish going to the
bathroom, and you don't wantthat.
And you don't reward the puppyor dog until after they come up
from the squat, but immediatelyafter.
So if they're lifting their leg, as soon as that leg comes down
, boom, mark and reward.
If they're squatting, as soonas they come up, mark and reward
.
But while they've got their leglifted, while they're squatting
(38:17):
, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry,hurry, hurry.
Okay, if I start doing that, bythe time I've got my two and a
half to three months of noaccidents.
Now I can ask them to go to thebathroom on cue or command and
(38:41):
that is going to be hurry, hurry, hurry.
Why do I do that?
Well, let's say that we'retraveling.
You know, some dogs are alittle strange.
They are comfortable going tothe bathroom at home or on a
walk, but not in a strangelocation, and I don't want to
(39:03):
have to be messing around withthis.
So it's a great idea to capturethat behavior label, that
behavior mark and reward whenthey actually are finished and
then down the road you'll beable to use that cue that you're
just using as a label right nowas a cue to get the puppy or
(39:25):
dog to go to the bathroom.
Yeah, all right, let's talkabout some other things.
Let's talk about diarrhea.
Okay, Listen, if your puppy oryour dog has diarrhea, that is
not an accident.
That is not a potty trainingaccident.
Okay, that is a GI upset andthat's something that, if it
(39:49):
doesn't clear up right away, youneed to consult with your
veterinarian.
Okay, so don't be hard on yourpuppy or dog.
If they got loose stool, ifthey've got diarrhea, all right,
all right, let's talk about adog or a puppy that just can't
get enough water, justabsolutely drinks like crazy
(40:12):
constantly and just peas likecrazy PPP, just constantly
peeing and peeing a lot.
Well, get that puppy, get thatdog into the vet.
Make sure that we're notdealing with any blood sugar
issues, diabetes.
Now, I'm not a veterinarian, Ican't give out medical advice
and I'm not.
That's why I'm saying if you'reexperiencing that, take your
(40:36):
puppy or dog to the vet to ruleout any medical issues.
The same thing if there's a lotof urgency to go and your puppy
or dog was holding it, now allof a sudden they can't make it
to the door, so to speak, andit's happening a lot and maybe
there's even a foul smell to it.
Is there a bladder infection?
(40:58):
Is there a UTI?
You know that can happen.
So again, when things areunusual like that, you want to
make sure to get your puppy oryour dog into the veterinarian,
rule out any possible medicalcontributing factors.
Okay, because those things theydefinitely.
They definitely happen.
All right, there's a couple morethings I want to talk about in
(41:20):
terms of potty training and thatis going to be fearful or
submissive urination and in somecases even defecation and
excitable urination.
When puppies are small andsometimes it doesn't matter size
if they get overstimulated, ifthey get too excited before
(41:46):
their bladders are mature, theymay leak, they may lose control
of the bladder.
That is not an accident.
That is not an accident.
That's an unconscious reflex.
Okay, do not punish thatthere's nothing you can do about
it.
Accept, accept, stop theexcitability.
(42:10):
You know it happens a lot wherepeople will come home.
The dog gets really excited andloses its bladder control and
peace.
So the way that you do thatwhen you come in, if your dog
gets excited, stop, freeze likea tree, just freeze.
Be very, still, very quiet,wait for the puppy, wait for the
(42:32):
dog to calm down.
Then take a step or two.
If the puppy or dog starts toget excited again, stop again
and freeze like a tree and onlymove when the puppy or dog is
calm.
Now you're going to need to dothat for a little while.
It's not like you are, you know, going to be able to do that
(42:57):
once and you know expect success.
Okay, every time when you comehome, when the puppy or dog is
excited, freeze like a tree, notjust necessarily when you come
home, that can be anytime.
You know guests come over.
You got to inform them what todo.
(43:18):
Eventually the puppy is goingto get older, the bladder will
get, those muscles will getstronger and typically that
works itself out.
Now some dogs have it really bad.
I mean it can.
I've seen it go on until somedogs were up to nine months of
age, and then I've seen it gobeyond that and I've seen dogs
(43:41):
that had such weak excuse mebladders that they needed to go
in to see the vet and they'vegot medication.
But listen, I don't want you tothink, just because you're
struggling with potty training,that you need to give your dog
medication for its bladder.
No, those are in special cases,special situations, and that's
(44:05):
for the vet to decide, not me,not you.
So the other thing besidesexcitable urination is
submissive or fearful urination.
So some dogs are verysubmissive, some dogs frightened
very easily and they can losecontrol of their bladder.
(44:26):
That again, that's not a pottyaccident.
That is an unconscious act andthat is something that you have
to begin to desensitize thepuppy or dog to those things
that are triggers that it causesthe puppy or dog to become
submissive or fearful, whichthen in turn causes the puppy or
(44:50):
dog to lose control of itsbladder.
All right, now let me talk aboutdog doors.
For me personally, I think thedog door is the greatest
invention ever made to help withpotty training, and I do this
(45:11):
with every one of my puppies,every one of my dogs.
I buy a crate.
I make sure there are.
It's a two door dog crate.
I remove one of the doors onthe crate.
My house has a dog door.
All my homes that I've lived inhave dog doors.
I take the crate, that doorthat I took off, I'm going to
(45:36):
take that and I'm going to takethe crate that doesn't have the
door, that opening where thedoor would be, and I'm going to
push it up against the dog door.
So think about it.
Let's say, I put the puppy ordog in the crate.
Now the puppy or dog has theability to go outside, they have
(45:57):
the ability to come back in,but they don't have the ability
to have accidents in the house.
And one of the ways that I loveto potty train is through
teaching the dog door.
And when I can't supervise, Ican put them in the crate and
they go out the dog door andthey go to the bathroom.
(46:17):
Now I will tell you, initially,when I'm potty training, I
don't use the dog door unlessit's a huge struggle.
Because, first and foremost,think about it.
If they're using the dog door,what are you not doing?
You're not out there to rewardthem.
So where's the positivereinforcement for going to the
(46:40):
bathroom in the correct place.
See, I believe that needs tohappen first and then, once that
happens, now you can start toteach the dog door and now they
can start to use it.
And I'll tell you, there'snothing better, absolutely
nothing better, than having adog door and not having to get
(47:03):
up, open the door and let thedog outside.
It's a great invention.
I highly recommend get a dogdoor Now.
I've had some people say oh,what about safety?
I don't want people breaking inthe house.
Let me tell you something Ifsomebody's going to break in
your house, they're going tobreak in your house.
(47:23):
That dog door is not going tobe the thing that's going to be.
Oh, I'm only going to breakinto houses that have dog doors,
okay.
And when they hear the dogsbarking, they're probably going
to turn around and run Robbers,burglars.
They don't like to go intohomes where there's dogs.
They don't know what they'regoing to encounter when they do
(47:46):
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All right, let's get back intothe potty training I want to
talk about.
You know, in some cases, let'ssay you've got a toy breed.
Let's say that maybe you livein an apartment.
Okay, in some of thosesituations, some people like to
(49:13):
train their dogs to go to thebathroom on pee pads, or maybe
they teach them to go in alitter box, or they get some
other type of turf.
Okay, they've got these boxesthat are elevated with fake turf
on them.
They even got self-cleaners.
I mean it can be prettysophisticated.
(49:34):
Now, typically typically thisis just me I try to dissuade
people from training theirpuppies or training their dogs
to use pads or go in a litterbox or something like that in
the house, because I believe Ibelieve that part of what it
(49:55):
teaches is that it's okay to goin the house and I've seen lots
of these puppies, lots of thesedogs make mistakes and go
elsewhere.
But with really good training,with really good consistency and
repetition, patience,understanding and compassion,
you can get that done All right,it wouldn't matter whether it's
(50:17):
a potty pad, it doesn't matterif it's a litter box.
Okay, one of the things that Ilike to do when I'm doing that,
especially what I like to do ifI'm doing pee pad training when
the puppy goes to the bathroomeither an accident, or the puppy
goes to the bathroom outsideI'm going to take a pee pad and
(50:38):
I'm going to soak up that urineand I'm going to keep that pee
pad with that soaked up urinepretty fresh, so like when it
gets stale, like two days laterI'm going to soak up another pee
pad with the Puppy or Dog'surine Because I need that scent.
I want that scent to kind ofdraw them over to it.
(51:00):
So it just kind of helps, kindof as a scent lure to where I
want them to go to the bathroom.
A lot of times too, I'm helpingwhere I'm doing pee pads.
I start off with a very largearea.
So I've got several pee padsput together, all right, and I
bring the puppy into the middleof that and I've got their drag
(51:25):
line that I'm holding very loose.
But if they start to step offof the potty pad now remember,
imagine, I've got, you know,like a three foot by four foot
area.
Then I've got all potty padslaid out and I put the puppy in
the middle.
I'm holding onto their leash orthat light piece of rope only
(51:47):
to guide them back on the peepads if they step off.
Okay, same rules apply If theygo to the bathroom.
I'm going to mark and reward asthey start going to the
bathroom.
I'm going to label it.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, remember,yeah.
And the one thing I'm not goingto do is I'm not going to just
pick up those pads right awaydown the road Once the puppy's
(52:11):
trained.
Yeah, I'm not going to keepsoiled pads down just because of
hygiene issues.
Now, the same thing for pooping.
Look, if the puppy has anaccident, it poops in the house,
so the puppy poops outside.
I'm going to take that poop,I'm going to put it on the pad
and guide the puppy over there.
I'm doing everything the same.
I've got my potty trainingjournal, my potty log.
(52:34):
I'm supervising or confining,marking and rewarding when
they're going to the bathroom.
The only difference is, insteadof going outside, I'm putting
them on a potty pad, or insteadof going outside, I'm putting
them in a litter box.
Now, when I do a litter box, Iget a large tub it's really not
(52:55):
a litter box and I put thelitter in there.
Again, I need the area to bebig to start with.
Once they understand to go inthat litter, once they
understand to go on the pad, now, little by little, I can shrink
the size of that down to onepee pad.
Little by little I can shrinkthe size of that tub where I've
(53:17):
got the litter in it, the littermaterial in it, make that
smaller till we get to the pointwhere it's just a regular
litter box.
So you can do that too.
Now what about the older dog?
Guess what, guys?
If you've got an older dogunless they are incontinent
(53:40):
because of age, and some, ifyou've got a really old dog and
the dog was doing great and thenall of a sudden it starts
having accidents, get the dog tothe vet.
Let's make sure everything'sokay there.
But when it comes to older dogs, the rules are exactly the same
.
You treat it as if that olderdog, even though it was potty
(54:02):
trained and now it's havingaccidents, you start from
scratch as if it was never pottytrained.
That's exact.
Because here's the thing thedog doesn't know better.
I know some of you think thatthey are doing it just to spite
you.
I know some of you think thatwhen you come home and you look
at them, they're showing youguilt.
(54:22):
That is not what's happening.
I can't get into the dynamicsof what's really happening, but
that is not guilt.
They know they're about readyto get in trouble because that's
something that has happened dayin and day out.
So when you come home, thatlook of what you think is guilt
(54:43):
is fear and anxiety typically,and we've done studies so we
know it's not guilt.
We've done scientific studies.
But your older dog is nottrying to spite you.
It's not that they're stubborn,it's that we've got to teach
them for whatever reason.
Maybe they got sick andcouldn't help it and went to the
(55:08):
bathroom in the house and nowthey think, oh, I can go both
places, outside and inside.
Then you've got a puppy or dogthat you've successfully potty
trained and they start havingaccidents again.
First think about is there apotential medical contributing
factor?
Possibly get them into the vet.
If you've ruled all that out,you've got to start from scratch
(55:30):
with potty training.
What about marking?
You know, I get people thatcontact me and say, oh, my dog's
potty trained, but we've got aproblem with the dog marking in
the house.
Guess what?
The dog's not potty trained.
Does it make a difference thatthey're lifting their leg?
I mean, I know what you'resaying.
(55:51):
You know they're markingterritory.
Maybe, maybe, but it doesn'tmatter.
What are the rules we're tryingto teach?
The rules we're trying to teachis you don't go to the bathroom
in the house, you go to thebathroom outside, and that
includes marking.
(56:11):
So if you've got a dog that'smarking and you think, hey, I
don't have a potty trainingissue, you're wrong.
You've got a potty trainingissue and you need to start from
scratch, and if you do that,you are going to have success.
Let me tell you something Ifyou follow these guidelines, you
(56:34):
can't help but have success.
The only people that don't havesuccess are the people that
don't do the work, and some ofthe greatest assets you can have
are patience, patience,patience and understanding.
So there you have it, folks.
(56:55):
There's the crash course in howto potty train any dog.
Remember, if you're struggling,go to Amazon, pick up my book,
house Training 101, pottyTraining Unleashed.
Please subscribe If you lovewhat we do.
Give us a five-star review.
Have a great day everybody.
I'm outta here.
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