To housebreak or not?

First things first: if your dog is going to live in your house or apartment, you have a vested interest in making sure the animal is adequately housebroken. That is, you will really want to train your dog to defecate and urinate outdoors. Training your dog to go on newspaper is not a substitute for housebreaking and can actually cause problems with your training program. If you have a really young puppy, you can use paper as an emergency measure, but your goal is to teach the dog to control her bodily functions until it is outside.

Most people buy puppies when they are about eight weeks old. This is a very important time for the dog psychologically. Not only is the puppy in the middle of learning human socialization skills, but also the animal is very delicate when it comes to responding to fear. Harsh discipline at such an early age should be avoided, or it may impact the dog for months or years to come. So, you can start housebreaking the day you bring your puppy home but go easy on the discipline. Dogs can be housebroken because they are, at their most basic level, den-dwelling animals. As such, dogs love to sleep in a warm, cozy den. Everything else happens outside the den. Dogs eat, socialize, mate and relieve themselves away from their dens. Dogs also love schedules. They fall very nicely into a routine. It provides structure, security and seems to give them a sense of understanding their environment. Putting a dog on a schedule for a long enough time can make the actions of the animal almost automatic. So that’s where to start the housebreaking.

The single most important aspect of house training is the schedule. Dogs typically have a bowel movement about 20 to 30 minutes after eating. With puppies, the interval can be even shorter, sometimes just a few minutes. This means you should plan your day and your training around regular feedings. And I do mean regular. If you are not maintaining the schedule of a German subway conductor, your housebreaking will suffer, and you’ll have the carpet-cleaning bills to prove it. So, lay in an ample supply of good-quality dog food, feed amounts according to the label instructions or your veterinarian’s recommendations, and establish a schedule that you are willing and able to maintain for several months. Don’t panic, since the housebreaking should only take a week or two. But maintaining the schedule will insure that you don’t have to deal with any accidents from your young dog. table width="95%" cellpadding="10" border="0">The Schedule From eight weeks to three months of age, you’ll be feeding your puppy four times a day with meals in the morning, at noon, late afternoon and an hour before bedtime. The hour before bed allows the dog to digest the food and relieve himself prior to sleeping. Once the puppy passes three months, you can shift to a morning, after-work and before-bed feeding schedule. One of the keys to success will be to always take the young dog out soon after eating and drinking and encourage the dog to "do her business" outside.

Food And Water

Serve recommended portions of food, along with a bowl of water at the appointed times and make both available for only 20 to 25 minutes. Take away the bowls after 25 minutes, even if the dog hasn’t finished eating all of the food. This will encourage the puppy to eat right away and allow you to stay on your schedule. There should be no free access to food at this time. I don’t believe free-feeding is a great idea anyway, but it is especially bad when you are trying to housebreak a dog. And, don’t go changing dog food brands in the middle of the housebreaking. A new kind of dog food can trigger diarrhea. Not only does that make it even harder for a young dog to "hold it," but the cleanup is not much fun either.

The Crate

Some call it a "den" or a dog box or a portable kennel. I call it a crate. Used in conjunction with the schedule, the crate will allow you to quickly housebreak the dog with very few accidents. Do not be cheap about dog crates. Get a good crate and get one that is right for your dog’s current size. Don’t buy one that’s too big and wait for your dog to grow into it. Buy the right size and as the puppy grows, buy bigger crates. Although you might end up with three by the time the dog is fully-grown, the headaches you’ll save will be worth the cost.

The idea of the crate is that a dog will not soil his den. That’s why dogs are so easy to housebreak. You can confine the dog in his crate while you are controlling the supply of food and water to teach the dog that relieving himself is something done only outside. The double bonus of using a crate is that during the training, the dog also learns to get over any separation anxiety early on. The best thing you can do for a young dog is allow the animal to be alone sometimes. Then, when you are gone to work, you won’t have to deal with a lot of barking, chewing or other bad behavior. But that’s for another chapter.

– Excerpted from 15 Minutes to a Great Dog by Kevin Michalowski available at National Book Store.