Outside Puppy Training

The first thing you’re going to want to train your puppy to do when you get him home, is go to the toilet in a designated area. This will usually mean outside, in the yard or garden.

Housetraining puppies requires lots of time and patience. Understand from the beginning that accidents are bound to happen, and resolve not to get upset or angry about them. Most puppies manage to grow up into healthy housetrained dogs, so don’t despair if your puppy seems a little slow to learn.

Place him where you want him to pee or defecate, and stay with him until he does. Don’t play with him during this stage as your trip into the garden has been for a specific purpose and you don’t want to confuse the issue.

Choose a command to let him know what he’s supposed to be doing, and stick with it, making sure all other family members who’re involved in housetraining your puppy use the same command. It could be something like ‘hurry up’, ‘go pee’ or just a ‘pss pss’ sound. It really doesn’t matter what you say, just as long as you’re consistent with it. Your puppy will eventually understand that he’s supposed to go to the toilet every time he hears that sound. Well housetrained puppies and dogs will try to go when they hear their command even if they don’t need to.

Don’t stroke him or praise him until he makes his toilet. If you do, you will teach your puppy that just being outside is good. It’s not the being outside that is good, it’s the going to the toilet outside, so reserve praise until that’s what he does.

House training your puppy to go outside from the very beginning teaches him right from the start what’s expected of him and can make house training much quicker, especially if used alongside a crate for when puppy is indoors but can’t be supervised.