Puppy Housebreaking Problems
The concept of eliminating in a desired location is very confusing for your puppy. It will take a great deal for your puppy to understand and be conditioned to urinate and eliminate other waste in a particular place. For that reason, housebreaking a young puppy is a slow process, which requires a great deal of patience and understanding.
One of the most common problems that you will face is when your puppy does not eliminate when you take them outside and admittedly, this can be very frustrating. The early stages of housebreaking your puppy are riddled with this problem. You take your puppy outside for ten minutes, with no luck and have to repeat the process constantly. Unfortunately, there is not a quick fix for this problem, but with patience the problem will subside. When your puppy finally does eliminate outside, it is important to shower your puppy with praise. Eventually, this will allow the puppy to know that eliminating outside is something that you desire and that it will be rewarded for.
Another very common problem is your puppy eliminating in the house. If treated incorrectly, this problem will only get worse, so it is very important to handle it in the right manner. The most important rule is that if you do not catch your puppy in the act of urinating or eliminating inside, do not punish your puppy.
It must be repeated for emphasis, do not punish your puppy! Puppies, or dogs for that matter, cannot associate between their past actions and punishment. By taking your puppy and scolding it or holding it in its mess, your puppy will acknowledge your anger, but not know the cause. The only thing you can do is clean up the mess, and make sure to be more attentive in the future. If you do catch your puppy in the act, the best course of action is to firmly tell your puppy "no" then immediately take your puppy outside, or to your desired area of elimination and when they finally do eliminate in this area, shower them with praise.
The third most common problem is your puppy eliminating in obscure places inside your home. This problem is usually caused due to improper handling of a situation when your puppy eliminated in the house. If the puppy is not shown and rewarded properly for eliminating outside, then it does not know that is where the owner wants him/her to eliminate. The puppy thinks it is doing you a favor by not eliminating in front of you. Like most problems with housebreaking, the solution to this problem requires a lot of patience, a bit of diligence and a great deal of praise when your puppy eliminated correctly. With enough positive reinforcement, your young puppy will eventually become a well house broken dog.
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