Potty training usually begins with puppies. Unfortunately, there are a lot of dogs who do not know yet where and when it is appropriate to poop. While housetraining has been popular for years, many people still have dogs that are not housetrained. The main advantage of being housetrained is that you could trust your dog not to make your house his large comfort room.
Just like other forms of dog training, potty training has several things needed for effective results. They are as follows:
The Timing
Not all dogs are ready for training and you cannot subject them to potty training at all times. The best time to correct misbehavior when it comes to potty is right after he poops. If you see the dog pooping, get his attention immediately and encourage him to continue outside.
Give a command that will signal him to stop, ensure to it that the tone of your voice is low. After which, start introducing him with the command "outside" while guiding him gently to go outside towards a specific location where he is allowed to eliminate regularly.
The Act
Most of the time, owners just discover the accident indoors and did not see the act. In this case, it is best to ignore the incident and wait for the next occasion the dog poops. Never rub his nose in it as this would not give him the proper lesson.
Instead, if you could make the dog come to the area you could scold the poop in his front instead of messing up his nose with it. Why? Because even if only several moments have passed, he would never be able to make a correlation between the action he did and the scolding.
If he is chewing a bone for example, and you scold him for pooping inside the house earlier, he would think that he is being scolded for chewing the bone not for eliminating indoors.
The Accompaniment
There are instances when the owner sees the dog eliminating indoors and was ordered to go outside and came back in and continued pooping. Again, in this case, the puppy has done nothing wrong. He does not know what the owner wants to communicate by going outside.
If you want the dog to accomplish as you say, you should have the patience to accompany him outside and teach him further. This could be made easier by using a leash for better control of the dog.
The Command
Training, in general, makes use of commands which are effective tool to communicate with the dog. However the main problem in here is the use of the words. What people don?t understand is that the dog simply can't comprehend the meanings of the words if not introduced to him well.
So in dog potty training, the trainer has to introduce the meaning of the commands well in order to gain some good results. For example, you could begin with the word "outside" to send him the signal that he should go outside. Then it could be followed by the words "go potty" to make him understand that it is time to eliminate.
Whatever he does after, never fail to praise him (in acknowledgement of a favorable behavior) or punish him for failing to follow the commands. Doing this process repetitively will condition his thinking that when you say the words "outside" and "go potty" you want him to go out of the house to poop.
Dogs, even when their breeding is maximized and well-adapted to human needs, would always need some basic obedience training for they would never figure this out on their own. Obedience training requires the use of some principles which differentiate effective training from training without results. They are the following:
Principle One: CONSISTENCY
The first rule in obedience training is to be consistent. This covers the use of words, tone, and the actions that accompany the word or command. During the beginning of the training, the trainer or the dog owner must decide what should be the parameters of training- what you are trying to teach the dog and how to do it.
A word or a phrase, let's say "come", does not make sense to a dog. He does not understand things the way human understands it and he does not understand the language we use. So to make the training understandable, you should use the command in a very consistent manner such that the dog will learn to associate the word with the meaning you attach with it.
For example, if you are using the command "come", make sue that everyone in the household use it in a singular manner. The command "Come" specifically means that the dog should approach the giver of the command use it in that sense. So if you are using this command make it a point that you would not do actions that would make the command confusing for the dog.
If he does not come to you, do not force the dog to come to you and punish him for doing so. This would make him attribute the command with the punishment. What could you expect next?- he would not follow the same command since this leads to punishment.
Consistency also covers the use of the same command by all people. For example, if you are using the command "come", other people in the household should not replace it with words like "here" or "come here boy".
Principle Two: KEEP IT SHORT
The hours devoted to training and the words used as command should be kept short. Keep in mind that the attention span of dogs is very short that making them engrossed with a specific activity would be very hard, if not impossible. Puppies would only react to a specific stimulus at a very long time, for example chasing a moving toy car, and then they would lose interest and move on to the next thing.
They simply don't posses the same amount of interest they had when they are staring the activity, they become easily bored. The same thing happens in training therefore, it should be limited only to 10 minutes to 15 minutes of regular training.
Principle Three: DO NOT USE FORCE and PUNISHMENT
Never hurt the dog if you want him to be trained. Also, never force the dog to follow the command if he is not prepared for it or punish a dog for something he did.
Don't push the animal too hard while training. The dog does not understand that he should learn things "instantly" and he does not realize that you are becoming impatient with the speed he is picking up the training. All he knows is that you are mad.
So do not use force as this does not communicate your meaning properly, instead use negative reinforcement. If he knows that he is praised when he does something right, he should not be praised when he does not follow a command.
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