The Potty Training PlannerLevel Up’s Ultimate Guide To House-Training Your Puppy
Welcome to Potty Training 101
Potty training a new puppy is enough to test even the most devout dog-lover’s patience.
The mess, the smell, the unpredictability — accidents in the house are the perfect storm of frustration. It’s no surprise that housebreaking problems are the #2 behavioral reason why dogs are surrendered to shelters in the US (source), second only to aggression. Finding yet another puddle on the floor can feel like the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
It doesn’t have to be like that! Armed with the right skills, you can successfully teach your puppy the difference between a lawn and an antique Persian rug.
In Level Up‘s Ultimate Guide to House-Training Your Puppy, you will learn:
- checkHow to prevent accidents before they happen
- checkHow to customize a potty routine appropriate for your puppy’s age
- checkTips to teach your dog to potty quickly and reliably as soon as they go outside
- checkWhat to do if your dog has an accident in the house
- checkHow to teach your dog to potty in a specific area in the yard
- checkWays to recognize when your dog needs to go outside (coming soon)
- checkHow to teach your dog to tell you when they need to potty (coming soon)
Ready to put the carpet cleaner away? Let’s get started!
Communicating With An Alien Species
Before we dive into the training plan, let’s take a second to appreciate the fact that what we’re doing is ridiculously unnatural.
We are asking an animal to understand arbitrary rules in a contrived, human-centered environment.
In most cases, parents don’t expect to start potty training their human children until somewhere in the 1.5 to 2.5 years range, and they don’t expect the process to be finished for months. But we take it for granted that we will be able to teach a completely different species the same concept in a matter of days or (only grudgingly and with much hand-wringing) weeks. Wow!
When you think about it, it’s astonishing how high our standards for dogs are.
Protect me from a burglar, but not from the mail man. Leave that delicious roast on the counter alone and eat those dry, bland, uniform kibbles in your bowl with gusto. Walk within a couple feet of me, wherever I want to go, at whatever speed I’m walking at, only when I want to walk, every time I want to walk, and regardless of what sort of interesting things are in the environment.
Potty training is on that list. Pee here, not there.
Also, “hold it” for hours for the opportunity to do so.
And do it quickly when I want you to.
And do it in all types of weather without complaint.
Oh, and by the way, you need to do this 100% of the time, with no mistakes for the rest of your life.
No pressure, right?
Do Any Of These Sentences Sound Familiar?
“But she knows better!”
“I keep telling him that it’s bad but he keeps doing it!”
“She knows it was bad because she looks guilty when I point at the mess.”
“He’s just doing it to spite me!” (Or, heaven forbid, “Because he’s “dominant’.”)
People often talk about potty training as if it were a fixed trait: Either the dog would rather be shot than piddle on the carpet, or he’s a pee-slinging heathen.
Black or white.
But contrary to how we talk about it, potty training is not a simple yes/no answer. Like all habits, potty training exists on a spectrum of likelihood.
And like all habits, it’s the accumulation of lots and lots of small decisions building momentum over time until they reach critical mass.
Debunking Lassie
At its most basic, potty training boils down to a learned habitual preference for going in one spot rather than another.
No more and no less.
As much as we would often love to believe otherwise, dogs are not moral creatures. They don’t see the world in shades of “good”/”bad” or “right”/”wrong.”
Unlike fictional canine heroes like Lassie, real dogs (like all animals) make decisions primarily based on two factors:
1. Is it safe to do?
2. Does it pay?
Not elaborate revenge schemes because you left the house too long and they felt snubbed by your absence. Not spite, stubbornness or passive-aggression. And certainly not an attempt to take over the house.
If a dog is continuing to do a behavior, it’s because it continues to be safe and it continues to pay in some way. In the case of potty training, the pay is generally relief from an uncomfortably full bladder.
If you’re like about 75% of my clients, you’re skeptical right now and possibly a little insulted on behalf of your very intelligent dog.
But I’m asking that you at least hear me out until the end of the article.
After all, if what you’re doing already was working, you wouldn’t be reading this, right?
Step Zero: Management And Prevention
Wait, why aren’t we starting with step one?
Because there are still things we need to take care of before you can start effectively potty training your dog. If you don’t get the groundwork set up, you’re signing up for three times as much work — and surely you’d rather do it the easy way!
Before anything else, I am about to tell you the most important secret of potty training. Ready?
The number one potty training mistake that people make is giving the puppy too much freedom, too soon.
I can’t even express to you how common this is. This mistake is at the core of virtually every potty training problem that I’m called in to fix. Proper preemptive management is the cornerstone of reliable potty training.
What does perfect potty training look like?
Your goal when you’re potty training a puppy is zero accidents, ever. Not once.
To accomplish that (and yes, it’s possible), you need to set your puppy up to succeed 100% of the time while they are learning.
Until your dog is solidly potty trained, they need to either be (a) somewhere “legal” to potty, (b) under active supervision from an adult or (c) somewhere they are extremely unlikely to potty under normal circumstances, such as a crate, their bed, a lap or on a short leash that a person is holding.
What does active supervision mean?
It means your eyes are on the dog and the dog is the primary thing that you’re paying attention to. If that’s not the case, leash them up so that you’re guaranteed to be less than 6’ away from the puppy.
If you think that sounds like a pain, imagine adding an extra week of potty training work every time you say, “She slipped away and peed while I had my back turned for one second!”
Is one second worth that extra week?
Right. Leash the dog.
Step One: Set A Timer
Full disclaimer: I am aware that this step stinks.
But you know what else stinks? Soggy socks. Scrubbing carpets. That feeling of betrayal and hopelessness as you moan, “But we JUST went outside!” At least training only stinks temporarily, know what I mean?
Set a timer for your potty breaks and for the next two weeks, obey your timer religiously.
If you need additional motivation, every time you are tempted to push the snooze button because “he seems fine, I’ll do it in five minutes, just let me finish what I’m working on,” please briefly imagine the feeling of stepping barefoot in cold, urine-soaked carpet. Then take your dog outside to potty even if he doesn’t seem like he needs it yet. Your feet will thank you!
Your Potty Training Timer
Your starting interval between potty trips depends on your puppy’s age.
<8 weeks: This puppy should still be with their litter. Take them to potty at least every 45 minutes during waking hours, but at this stage of development, their physical capacity to “hold it” is still a work in progress.
8-10 weeks: Take them to potty every 60 minutes during waking hours.
10-12 weeks: Take them to potty every 90 minutes during waking hours.
12+ weeks: Take them to potty every 120 minutes during waking hours.
Overnight: Take them to potty every 3-4 hours overnight or during crated periods.
You may have noticed that this is much more frequent than your dog’s physical bladder capacity.
That’s intentional.
The ingredients for a habit
Right now, if your puppy is having potty problems, he is struggling with one of two things:
1. He doesn’t have frequent enough opportunities to go outside.
2. He doesn’t have sufficient incentive to hold it until his next chance to go outside.
Imagine these things on opposite sides of a seesaw.
The more opportunities you give him, the easier it will be for those cumulative consequences to sway your puppy and the less work you have to put into the actual training side.
And conversely, the more valuable you make pottying outside, the more you’re allowed to stretch the timer.
In this training plan, we’re going to tackle that from both sides, and part of that means taking him outside very, very often at first.
Step Two: The Potty Training Routine
Let me introduce you to the 10 , 10, 10 rule of potty training.
That’s cycles of 10 minutes in the yard, 10 feet of potty area in the yard, 10 minutes of supervision. It all adds up to potty training with minimal errors, even for harder to train dogs who may be struggling with other methods.
Every time the timer goes off, leash your dog.
And this is important: Leash your puppy even if you have a fenced yard or “he always stays right with me.”
Even if the environment is 100% safe, we have two other uses for the leash in potty training.
First, potty training is easiest if the dog is taken to the same small area every time.
The yard as a whole is for play, for social, for potty, for being outside with nature, for sniffing the ground — there are dozens of fun things for puppies to do in the yard, and many of them will seem more appealing to your puppy than going to the bathroom at any give n moment.
The potty area is for potty, and that’s all. When you’re in the potty area, the best thing you can do is potty.
And second, keeping him on leash until after he has pottied allows us to leverage access to the rest of the yard as a reward when he finally goes.
The short version: Dogs with empty bladders get to play! Dogs with full bladders stay on leash in the potty area.
Take your dog outside.
Quickly but calmly walk your dog to the door you intend to use for potty walks. Most people find it easiest to use the same door each time so the puppy has a clear routine, but do what works for you here. With a young puppy, and especially if you’re having accidents en route to the door, it’s okay to carry your puppy outside. You’re not going to spoil them or convince them that they can’t walk, and you may spare yourself some accidents.
Take several small, high-value treats with you on your way out the door. Keep a stash of treats wherever you store the leash.
This step is not optional if you are still potty training your puppy!
During the beginning stages of potty training, you may find it easier to keep treats in your pocket or in a container outside (out of reach of puppies and wildlife). Make sure you have something really wonderful to reward them with.
And then wait patiently.
Walk outside to a roughly ten foot area with the same type of surface you’d eventually like the puppy to pee on (typically grass if available). Pick somewhere boring and go to the same place every time. We’re using the leash to ensure that the puppy only has access to this boring, bodily-functions-only section of the yard until he has done his business.
Then stand there.
Do nothing.
Say nothing.
Watch the puppy casually.
Hold the leash loosely like you’ve halfway forgotten that you’re holding it.
Glance at your watch.
Wait ten minutes.
Option 1: Hooray! The Puppy Pottied Outside!
Wonderful! Reward your puppy for a job well done!
The second they have stopped pottying:
- Say “Yes!” in a cheerful voice
- Praise your puppy like you’ve lost your mind with happiness over this bodily function
- Quickly feed them several tiny pieces of high-value treats one after another, machine-gun style (pea-sized pieces of cheese or hotdog are excellent for this).
- Carry on about how clever and talented your puppy is for an uncomfortably long period of time.
- If it doesn’t feel weird, you probably haven’t praised them enough.
Timing is critical here.
Too early and you can surprise the puppy into pausing mid-potty, leaving them with a partially-full bladder.
Too late and the dog won’t make the connection between their behavior and the reward.
Ideally, you want to wait for the second when their butt is raising up to return to standing position (even male puppies who stand/squat should lower their back half slightly or change the angle of their hips). If that’s not possible, during the first step after they’ve finished pottying is okay too. Get the treat into their mouth as close as possible to that point.
Option 2: But Wait! It Has Been Ten Minutes And My Puppy Didn’t Potty!
So you were diligent and boring and your puppy still didn’t produce.
No worries, that’s a quick fix. It’s also very normal for the first day or two.
Take her inside and go back to full-blown management for ten minutes.
Don’t let your guard down
Be extra vigilant at this point. This is where a huge percentage of potty training lapses crop up!
Owners assume that the puppy must be empty since they didn’t take the opportunity to go while they were outside and let their attention relax. That’s when the puppy takes advantage of the momentary lull in supervision to potty in privacy when they’re not being stared at by a human. Whoops! Now you have a mess to clean up.
People get frustrated, dogs get scolded, no one learns much.
Skip that step.
Instead, since you know that coming back inside after not pottying is the #1 time for potty accidents, you need to bring your A-game in terms of management.
For ten minutes, supervise your puppy like a hawk. With especially mischievous puppies or when I know that my attention will be divided, I like to sit with them on a sofa or hold them in my lap (if they are comfortable with that), because those are places where puppies are extremely unlikely to potty.
If I can’t give the puppy my undivided attention, they go into a crate, a puppy pen or somewhere they are temporarily allowed to potty (such as a laundry room covered in puppy pads). The dog should only have two options: go potty somewhere “legal” or go potty somewhere they are extremely unlikely to go (laps, arms, within two feet of a person, crate).
Once more, same as before
After ten minutes of supervision, leash your puppy the same as before and take them to the same door.
Stand in the same ten foot area of the yard for an additional ten minutes, being as boring as possible again.
Don’t be tempted to kill two birds with one stone by taking your puppy on an exercise walk or playing with them while waiting for potty. The world should be very boring for dogs with full bladders and should suddenly become fun after they’ve pottied. Save your play and exercise walks for after your dog has pottied, at least in the beginning.
What if she’s not doing anything?
If your dog just sits at your feet and does nothing, it’s okay to walk aimlessly and slowly around the ten foot potty area, as if you were waiting for someone who was late and trying not to look impatient, just casually drifting back and forth.
Be aware of where the puppy is, but loosely — don’t stare at them, don’t face directly toward them, and don’t chant “go potty, go potty, go potty” at this point.
For best results, look like you are bored out of your mind and only about 25% aware that your puppy still exists on the other end of the leash.
If your puppy goes to the bathroom, hooray! Celebrate as above and you can let your management guard down a bit for the next half hour.
If your puppy still doesn’t go to the bathroom, go back to strict management for another ten minutes.
Repeat the cycle until potty happens.
How long do I have to keep doing this?
Every time you take the puppy inside after an unsuccessful potty trip, the temptation to leave him to his own devices for “just a second” will get stronger.
Resist. This. Temptation.
Because the likelihood that his bladder and bowels are full increases with every minute. He is getting more likely to have an accident, not less.
The first two to three days of this new routine are by far the hardest. Your puppy doesn’t know what you want yet, and your whole life has become an endless cycle of letting the dog in and letting the dog out. It sucks. It’s normal. It gets better rapidly after the first couple of days. It’s the price of a potty trained dog.
Would you rather…?
You are essentially presenting your dog with two choices:
1. Pee outside on grass while your human is mostly not paying attention to you and the opportunity has presented itself. Get showered in praise and tasty morsels of delicious food and fussed over in a wonderful way like you are the most magical creature in the whole universe, then play with your human who has suddenly become fun again.
2. Pee while your human is staring at you inside the house at close range, or on their lap, or in your crate. No praise, no reward, no party, no privacy, no fun, kind of awkward.
Given sufficient opportunity, Option #1 is the obvious answer.
Your goal is to make it absolutely blindingly obvious that pottying outside unlocks a whole world of wonderfulness, and there’s really no opportunity to go anywhere else so you may as well do it quickly and get started on the good stuff.
The keys to the kingdom
After pottying, your puppy has license to play with you outside. You don’t have to pretend to be boring anymore, hooray! (I know you’re a very interesting person and that part was hard for you.)
If the environment is safe, you can remove the leash now. Your puppy can have access to the rest of the yard beyond the potty area. If you want to go for an exercise walk, this is the time to do it.
Going potty in the boring potty area unlocks all the good things puppies enjoy.
When your puppy has both peed and pooped, you can give them a bit more freedom in the house. One successful potty trip usually earns about thirty minutes to an hour before it’s time to go back to management mode in the beginning, although you’ll be able to stretch that to longer periods as your dog stays successful.
If they’ve only done one or the other, they can have freedom outside, but still need to be monitored inside. Puppies are excellent at producing waste in prodigious quantities at incredible speed, so if you haven’t seen both within the hour, it’s safe to assume it’s coming soon.
Note: The timer resets when the dog potties, not when you go back inside. If he pees at 9am and you play outside for half an hour, he’s due to go back out at 10am, not 10:30.
Reset your timer each time the puppy potties.
Step Three: Record Keeping
Why do I need to keep records?
Nobody wants to walk their puppy every hour forever. We are going to make adjustments to your dog’s potty schedule based on a combination of their age and how long it has been since they last had an accident in the house. To do that, we need accurate records of their bathroom habits to make sure we’re not asking them to hold it too long (leading to more accidents).
What do I track?
Your records don’t need to be anything elaborate, but they do need to keep accurate information.
We recommend two separate logs: one tracking all normal bathroom trips, and one only tracking accidents. This allows you to track the patterns in your successes and failures separately.
How to use the Potty Pattern Tracker
The Potty Pattern Tracker logs your scheduled trips outside. This allows you to see patterns in how often your dog needs to go potty, as well as how reliably they are going on the first trip outside. It also shows you how diligently you’re sticking with the current schedule (because we’re human and real life happens), which helps you stay on track.
Details to track on the Potty Pattern Tracker:
- Time when you took the dog outside
- Did they pee within ten minutes?
- Did they poop within ten minutes?
- If not, how many cycles of ten minutes of outside/ten minutes of management did it take before they pottied?
To help you stay organized, we’ve made this free downloadable worksheet. Print off the image below to track your dog’s potty training progress.
Tips:
- Post the tracker in a prominent place near the door. Be sure to leave a pencil nearby as well.
- Mark one column if the puppy peed and the other column if the puppy pooped. This allows you to see differences in spacing. It is normal for puppies to pee much more often than they poop, especially as they get older.
- Use the Observations section to make any notes about this week’s progress.
- Don’t throw away last week’s log! Keep your records until your puppy is house-trained so you can see any patterns that emerge.
How to use the Accident Log
This log tracks only accidents. Keeping all of the accidents on one sheet allows you to look for patterns in errors without having to filter through the successful potty trips. This can help you build a work-around to keep your puppy successful next time.
Details to track on the Accident Log:
- When did it happen?
- Where did it happen?
- How long had it been since the last bathroom trip? And did the dog go potty on the last bathroom trip?
- Who was responsible for the dog when it happened? (in multi-person homes)
- Were there any unusual circumstances around the accident?
- How long had it been between the last accident and this one?
Since the details on accidents vary from situation to situation and from puppy to puppy, we don’t have a convenient worksheet for this one. We recommend keeping a journal of accidents on a blank sheet of paper or on the back of the Potty Pattern Tracker sheet.
Step Four: Stretching the Timer
Okay, but when can I take them less often?
To use a crude metaphor, we’ve been essentially teaching your puppy that they can trade bodily fluids for awesome food and access to play. Now we need to teach him that it’s also possible to save it up.
Unfortunately, “holding it” isn’t a skill that comes pre-installed in most mammals (except in close confinement), so this step requires some finesse. We will do this by gradually and systematically increasing the amount of time between potty trips and continuing to reward heavily for pottying outside.
How do I know when to increase/decrease?
Rule of thumb: When your puppy has been accident-free for a week, you can stretch the timer by half an hour.
If you had been taking your puppy out every 60 minutes, now you can take them out every 90 minutes. When you’ve been accident-free for a week at 90 minutes, you can stretch to 120 minutes, and so on.
If you have more than two accidents in a week, go back to the previous step where you were successful for an additional week. It’s frustrating in the short term, but much less frustrating than an adult dog who is only potty trained “most of the time.”
What To Do If Your Puppy Has An Accident
How (not) to punish accidents
I’m frequently asked the most effective way to “let the dog know it’s wrong” in training, and particularly in potty training.
Everyone and their cousin has a tried and true method for correcting potty accidents that “worked great for them.” Common suggestions include rubbing their nose in the carpet, spanking them, yelling “no,” putting them in time out, spraying them with water (or worse), making various startling noises or throwing objects intended to startle in their direction.
And the secret to effective potty training is that if you’re doing your homework, you don’t need to do any of those things.
In fact, the thing that all of the above suggestions have in common is that they are very likely to backfire.
You don’t have to hurt, scare, intimidate, correct, punish or scold your dog to potty train them. And if anyone says you that you do, that tells you more about their limitations than your dog’s.
So what SHOULD you do if there’s an accident?
If you’re following the 10 – 10 – 10 method of potty training, you should have almost no accidents. Your puppy is either under active supervision, confined, or in a place where they are allowed to potty, which should reduce accidents to nearly zero. But they’re called “accidents” for a reason, and well, sometimes life happens in spite of the best planning.
If your puppy potties inside in front of you, you can optionally clap your hands once to interrupt while the dog is pottying. Scoop them up if possible, leash them and walk briskly to the door, taking them to their ten foot potty area. Wait ten minutes as usual. If they resume pottying, reward generously as usual. If they finished pottying before you got them outside and they’re empty now, leash them up, take them back inside and reset your timer for your usual schedule.
If the puppy is not actively in the process of pottying when you find the accident, it’s too late. Clean it up and make a note to do better with management next time to prevent it from happening again.
Wait, but how will he know that it’s WRONG?
Because every time he potties outside, he is immediately showered in delicious food, told that he is amazing and invited to play. Pottying in the grass unlocks all of the wonderful things in the world, every time, guaranteed. By comparison, pottying on the carpet is super disappointing — all you get is relief from an overly full bladder.
Imagine you have to pee and you have two options: Go right now standing where you are, or walk to the bathroom on the other side of the house and someone will pay you $100 for peeing there.
You’d have to be really desperate to choose to go now.
Teaching Your Dog To Ring A Bell To Go Outside
Reasons why someone would use a bell
A potty bell allows the dog to actively signal you that they need to potty. Some dogs teach themselves to sit at the door, scratch the door, whine or bark. Others struggle to take the initiative to let you know when they need to go. Potty bells give them a systematic way to ask. We can teach the puppy that the bells control the door, and the puppy controls the bells.
Introducing The Bell
Get some type of bell that hangs vertically near the door. I often use small windchimes because they’re very audible, very easy for the dog to hit with paw or nose, and easy for people to find in stores.
Start off by holding a treat behind the bells each time you go outside so she has to accidentally ring the bells with her nose in the process of getting the treat. Do this each time you go out for a potty walk (but not for exercise/play walks — you’ll want to separate those temporarily) and immediately take her outside after the bells chime.
In the beginning, you are basically ringing the bells yourself by luring her face into them.
It usually only takes a couple of days for the dog to bump into the potty bell on their own, usually by accident the first few times — reward heavily as if it was intentional and immediately take her outside.
Integrating the bell into the potty routine
Every time she rings the bell, even if you know she just peed fifteen minutes ago, leash her up and take her outside. For the first couple of weeks, the bell is law. Go to the same designated spot in the yard every time, ideally close to the house and not terribly interesting. Stand there and be boring for a maximum of five minutes, or less if it’s blatantly obvious that she has no intention of peeing, but do give her the benefit of the doubt.
If she pees, reward with food while she’s still learning the bell. This encourages her to pee quickly when you take her out so you don’t have to wait for ages for her to find the perfect blade of grass to water. It also makes the bell = potty opportunity = reinforcement opportunity connection clearer to her.
If she doesn’t pee, she goes back inside and doesn’t get an exercise walk or fun in the yard. This is teaching her two things:
(A) the bell gives you an opportunity to potty, and
(B) the bell does not ever give you an opportunity to play or exercise, so don’t abuse the privilege.
What stops her from ringing the bell when she wants to play?
One of the most common errors with teaching the bells is accidentally teaching the dog to demand play or exercise walks, so in the beginning, I want those to feel like totally separate things. Bell means potty with a zero percent chance of play, and exercise/play walks are initiated by you.
As she gets more reliable with the bell, you can blend them back together if you’d like, but it’s also fine to keep them separate. If you do decide to blend them back together, when she rings the bell to ask, potty absolutely has to happen in the boring area of the yard before the play/exercise walk begins.
Personally, I keep potty walks and exercise walks separate for my dogs. One of the few dog training things that makes me properly lose my patience is when a dog won’t pee while I’m waiting. I make sure to reinforce the dogs who live with me for peeing promptly and reliably as soon as they hit grass.
How to deal with false alarms
As she gets more experienced with the bell, you can choose to ignore false-alarm rings (e.g. if she just went out ten minutes ago and you’re willing to bet $100 that she is empty) at your discretion. Most dogs learn pretty quickly that ringing the bell isn’t worth it unless you genuinely need to potty. For most dogs, I err on the side of taking them at their word if they think they might need to go.
But some dogs find just being outside so reinforcing that even standing in the boring potty area doing nothing for five minutes is valuable enough that they become bell-tyrants. Bell-tyrants are a pain to live with. If I’m getting bunches of false alarms, I start ignoring the ones that I’m very very confident are not potty-motivated rings. This requires more management in the short term to prevent accidents, but makes the boundary clear to your dog. Bells ONLY mean potty.
Tips, Tricks, Trouble-Shooting and Best Practices
Puppy won’t potty on leash
This is very normal during the first couple of days, especially with young puppies and new rescues. The dog will easily potty in the house and even outside off leash, but is very reluctant to go to the bathroom when they’re on leash. A lot of the time this is specific to pooping — they can pee comfortably on leash but wait to poop until they’re inside.
Cause #1: Worry
Often, these are puppies who have been scolded for doing their business in front of a person. Instead of learning that peeing in the house is bad, puppies often accidentally learn that peeing near people is likely to make the human fuss! This is one major reason why Level Up does not recommend correcting puppies for accidents in the house — it backfires every bit as often as it works. So the easiest solution is to stop scolding your puppy for accidents if you’re currently doing that.
For less secure puppies, going to the bathroom can make them feel vulnerable. Taking them to a quiet, private area can help them feel comfortable enough to go to the bathroom. In some cases, it helps to have the potty area located near some sort of cover. Bushes, shrubs, fence lines and the edges of buildings are good choices. Many will choose to go right up against a solid surface (fence line, building, barrier) or as close as they can get to large plants. Some people misinterpret this insecurity as “modesty.” In most cases, this improves with age.
Cause #2: Habit
If your puppy fits into neither of those categories, it’s likely just the change of routine. This is especially likely if they’re not used to the leash in general. Stick with it for three days before making a decision. If you only give them the option to potty on leash outside, the vast majority of puppies will be happy and comfortable pottying on leash by day three. Be compassionate but stick to your guns. For these puppies, it is even more important than usual to reward extravagantly when they go on leash. Don’t be stingy with your treats at this stage! It is helpful to get them more comfortable with wearing a leash and collar in general, since these can be upsetting for some puppies at first.
Puppy goes right after they come back inside
This is hands-down the most common potty training email I get. Almost every single potty training consult includes some variation on this comment.
Fortunately, it’s also a pretty straight-forward fix.
In about 90% of cases, the dog didn’t potty when they were outside. As soon as you bring the puppy back inside, you relax your management for a few minutes because “they obviously don’t need to go.” The puppy takes advantage of the private moment to potty. Rugs near the door are the most common target.
If your puppy doesn’t go potty when you go outside, that is a time for more management, not less. It makes sense for us to interpret this as the puppy being empty. Unfortunately, in reality, each unsuccessful trip outside increases the likelihood of an accident.
Unless you’ve seen both poop and pee within the past hour, assume the puppy is loaded.
The first ten minutes after you come back inside from an unproductive potty break are the highest risk for accidents inside. Recognize this as a high-risk time and manage accordingly to make pottying less likely (crate, lap, leash, or in a place where they are allowed to potty, such as a small room or pen with potty pads).
That’s It, Folks!
Congratulations! By this point, you should be well on your way to a house trained puppy. You’ve learned how to your dog up for success, how to manage to prevent accidents, how to reward for good behavior, and how to teach your dog to ask to go potty.
Once your dog is reliably pottying outside on the first trip and you’ve been accident-free for a week or two at your long-term potty schedule frequency (e.g. 3-4 walks a day), you can start to taper down the food rewards by gradually “forgetting” the treats more and more often.
Still Have Questions?
If you’re still struggling with your dog’s behavior, we’re here for you. Reach out by email and we can figure out how to get you back on track.