‘Perfect’ Potty/Crate Training How-To
By no means am I an expert in dog training. But Eo’s a stubborn mutt, and I’ve had a lot of success with her training. This might work for you, but I make no promises!
Last night I was walking Eowyn around our neighborhood as part of our pre-surgery exercise routine, and I came across a guy walking a very, VERY young puppy. There have been incidences of Parvo in our neighborhood due to wild/stray dogs and wildlife (we live on the edge of the city/country divide) and it’s really not good to be walking a puppy that hasn’t had all of it’s vaccinations outdoors in my area. I told the guy walking the puppy about the parvo and recommended he didn’t leave the puppy outside ‘cept for potty breaks. And then he revealed he was a new dog owner, and the puppy was driving him nuts — chewing on everything, tearing around the house, pooping in his crate, and generally being, well, a puppy.
I shrugged and walked on, but I spent the rest of the walk thinking about what we did with Eo when she was a puppy. First off, she didn’t spend her first few weeks with us in the crate — she spent it completely out of the crate except at night. This is vital.
“Perfect” potty training means that you teach the dog that the proper place to go to the bathroom is in the grass, and that you will take them when they indicate they need to go out. The eventual goal is to get the dog to go to the bathroom on command. This works much better than ‘puppy pads’ — and it lasts as long as you reinforce it.
We all know how dogs sniff around and find the *perfect* place to go to the bathroom, right? Well, puppies do this to. Watch for it. That’s the first rule: Watch the dog like a hawk, and don’t let it out of the room/your sight. Baby gates work great for blocking doors. (I was lucky enough to be able to take the pupster into the office with me so I could watch her while working, but if you need to, take some time off of work!)
Second rule - Leash the dog when you go out. This gives you control. Either use a slip leash or clip a leash to the puppy’s collar. When you get outside, let the dog start sniffing around and tell it “Go potty! Go potty!” You’re associating that command with the feeling of needing to go to the bathroom. When the dog starts going to the bathroom, praise it — “Good potty! Good girl! Good potty!” in a high-pitched voice. And when it’s done, give it a treat! But no treat until it goes at least a little bit…
Third rule - Don’t think a puppy’s going to be able to hold it all night. They won’t, and they’ll mess the crate. Do not discipline them for messing the crate, just take them outside and see if anything’s left, and immediately clean up the cage. Hopefully they’ll eventually start whining or banging on the crate door when they need to go out.
Eo learned to bang on the crate to go out very quickly. She also learned that she could go out and play when she woke up and was bored in the middle of the night. So the fourth rule is that when you go outside and give the go-potty command, they should find a good spot, squat, and do their business. There is no towing you across the yard. If they are NOT sniffing the ground and actively looking for a place to go potty, jerk hard on the leash and say in a firm, deep voice, “Go Potty.” And then WAIT until they’ve produced some. Even if it takes an hour. Even if it takes two hours at 3am with you being eaten alive by mosquitos, you need to stand there and keep the dog focused on the act you want him to focus on. It should NOT be a fun experience until the dog’s gone to the bathroom, and THEN it gets fun!
And don’t forget the treat!
Side note: By instinct, dogs will try to avoid messing their crate — their ‘den’. But some dogs have been forced to go in their crate/cage — either at the humane society shelter, the pet store in the mall, or a backyard breeder’s cage. Don’t worry about it too much at first, and don’t discipline the dog for going inside the house. Just clean it up and move on. The act of you cleaning it up and making it go away will eventually clue them in that this is your ‘den’.
It always amazes people that I can let Eo out of the car or into the backyard, and tell her to go potty, and she’ll just DO it. This makes me comfortable leaving her crated for long hours or taking her on roadtrips. I forced consistency on her and watched her like a hawk, but the rewards have been so good in the long term that it’s really been worth it.