Especially when you are first training your dog, it might seem impossible to stop him from having accidents in the house. You turn your back for one minute, when he seems perfectly fine, and he has gone to the bathroom on your favorite rug. When we were house-training our first puppy, it seemed impossible to get her to understand that she needs to go to the bathroom outside, no matter what we did. When she was an adult and we adopted another puppy, he was house-trained in a matter of days, though we didn’t do anything differently.
What can you do to reclaim your house and prevent your dog, whether young or old, from having accidents in the house? Here’s what you need to do:
1. Start by establishing a routine.
They should know exactly when they are going to be let out to go to the bathroom every morning and every evening, there will be less anxiety about when they are going to have a chance to go to the bathroom. If you commit to letting your dog out as soon as you get up and right before you go to bed, you can establish a routine that will put an end to having accidents in the house.
2. Ditch the potty pads.
They might protect your furniture and your carpets, but they actually encourage your dog to go to the bathroom in the house. Your dog will only be confused about why you get so angry sometimes and seem just annoyed other times. You never want to present your dog with conflicting signals when it comes to house training. Actually getting your dog house trained is much better than having to rely on the potty pads.
3. Make sure your dog does not suffer from separation anxiety.
A dog that suffers from separation anxiety is going to have a very hard time holding their bladder when you are not home. This is something that owners will often see in their older dogs. You think your pooch is house trained, but then you start a new job and you have to leave him home alone during the day and he starts having accidents, even if you are not gone long enough for him to not be able to hold it. If this is the case, you’ll have to deal with the anxiety before you can deal with the accidents.
4. Give them a smaller space.
This is why crate training is so important for dogs. Dogs do not want to live in a dirty space. You’ll notice that a dog will do just about anything to avoid soiling their crate. If your dog is having trouble with accidents in the house, a good way to help that dog is to confine them in a smaller space. If you have a side hall or can section off a part of the house with a baby gate, this is a great way to stop those accidents.
5. Arrange your life around your dog’s schedule.
Pet ownership, though it differs in many ways from parenthood, requires many of the same sacrifices and responsibilities. If your dog simply cannot hold it throughout the entire day while you are at work, no matter what techniques you try, you probably need to make coming home and letting him out to pee at lunch part of your routine. Your dog is not a robot, he needs to go to the bathroom and he will just go if he’s trapped inside for too long.
