I have a new puppy that is a Pomeranian mix. I need tips for how to housebreak him.
By pam
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This is going to require a lot of your time giving your puppy regular routine potty breaks outdoors. (Thankfully you have good weather to train your puppy) Always take the puppy to the same spot so it will know this is where it is to always go. Do not put puppy pad near the puppy's sleeping area or food. Expect some accidents while puppy is being trained. I took my puppy outdoors about every half hour to 45 minutes when it was possible. This also depends on how much liquid your puppy is drinking; the more water intake, the sooner the potty break. Give less water near bedtime.
Taking the dog outside is not enough. Dogs need lots of exercise no matter what their size.
You need to have the dog on a very regular feeding and walking/jogging schedule. After the two main meals; take the dog for walks/jog at least 45 min- 1 hour each time and supplement with multiple quick pee walks throughout the day. Your dog needs the sights, sounds and smells of the long walks to fully empty everything and to become well socialized.
I've trained hundreds of dogs and never used weewee pads or anything but what I describe above. Caging a dog will usually create way more problems than it confines. Tired dogs are happy dogs who sleep when you're away. Please don't neglect to scoop the poop. It doesn't miraculously disappear or become clean because a dog is small.
I have two dogs (one is a Yorkie Poo and one is a Doberman - so this seems to work for all kinds)....
We did crate training (but of course it was in moderation where the puppies were in their crate at night when we were sleeping and if we left the house - which we never left them in there for more than a couple hours, and we took them outside immediately before and after), but the key to the main housebreaking was that when we had the dogs out, we used a baby gate to keep them in the room with us with the door to go outside accessible and we put a hotel bell on the floor by the door (you can get them for about $5 at office depot I think, there are other options such as hanging a bell or some kind of noisemaker from the door handle but having the bell on the floor kept the dogs from learning to scratch at the door itself).
With puppies you need to take them out every 45 minutes or so until they are able to control their bladders better and what we did was walk the puppy over to the door and take his paw and ring the bell a few times with it, then immediately open the door and let him out. They began to learn where to go when they needed to go out and what is nice is that we were teaching them to go to the door but not scratch the door or anything.
They learned to ring the bell to tell us they had to go out (which is really nice for the bigger dogs who could tear up your door if they start scratching at it). Eventually they just learn where to go and you can take the bell away so you don't have to hear the ringing all of the time. Now our dogs just go and sit by the door and wait for you to let them outside.
An added bonus to the bell trick, if you are like us who travel a lot and are always taking the dogs with us to different places...you can take the bell with and then just put it next to the door where the dog should go to go outside and show them where it is and they associate the bell with outside and know where to go when in a new environment. Even if they haven't used the bell in a while, we've found that if you bring it back out either in your home or in a new place and put it by the door they still remember and will go back to ringing it so if you ever get another puppy and put the bell back out the older dogs that know the trick almost help in the training by doing it themselves and then the puppies usually follow the older dogs and do what they do. Its actually really cute. Its worked like a charm for us. Good luck!
We always teach our dogs to go on command. Once they start sniffing we take them outside and watch us closely. Once they start to go potty, we say 'potty'. Even now with our 9 year old and 3 year old German Shorthairs, when we say 'potty' they will start sniffing and go. Our youngest one was way too smart for us, because we couldn't use that word in the house for a long time because he would go potty where ever he was at!
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