Mistakes are inevitable when it is your first time potty training a puppy, but this does not mean that you cannot prevent these mistakes from happening to you.
The entire process of potty training puppies entails a lot of watching, rewarding, discouraging, cleaning and a whole lot more. With the large number of factors to be taken into consideration, it is no small surprise that many new puppy owners get so easily discouraged with the potty training process.
To help make your life training these puppies a whole lot easier, here are a few red flags to avoid when training that little tyke to go where it should go:
Never take your eyes off the dog:
The potty training process demands a great deal of time and attention in order for it to work. You have to catch the puppy in act of sniffing around, looking for a place to relieve itself. You have to move the puppy to the spot where it should go and subsequently reward the little tyke when it does so. You have to punish it if there are accidents, which you have to clean up afterward.
In short, never, ever take your eyes off the dog while it is still being potty trained.
Overfeeding and underfeeding:
There are two ways this can go wrong. Overfeeding the puppy to encourage it to poo will train it to be a glutton and will definitely be bad for its health. Underfeeding the puppy to discourage it from pooing will not only make it weak and unhealthy, but agitated and neurotic as well. Both extremes are something you do not want to happen to the newest member of the family.
Feed the puppy twice or thrice during the potty training process, depending on its nutritional needs, and worry about potty training when it has to go.
Delayed reinforcement or punishment:
A young pup has what seems to be a 30-second memory span. Giving a treat or giving it a thrashing after that span will only serve to confuse the puppy, either making it expect a treat out of thin air or scaring it away from you and your family. It will have no idea it is being praised or punished for excreting correctly or not.
So remember to reinforce or discourage an action within that 30-second time frame. Any more time, and you will just have to resign yourself to cleaning up the mess afterward.
Don’t exclude your family:
Potty training puppies requires a combined effort from the whole family in order to consistently apply the training process. If one member of the family knows how to train the puppy while the rest don’t, the puppy will have an extremely difficult time understanding just what to do with all the contradicting training it receives.
Involve your family to keep the training consistent, and the whole process will be a whole lot faster and easier.
Now remember to steer clear of these red flags, and you will find that potty training a puppy is a lot less troublesome than some people make it out to be!
Puppy Training & Care : How to Potty-Train a Puppy
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