Fast Potty Training 101

Congrats on your new puppy and welcome to the world of potty training! This article on potty training your puppy has been broken up into two parts for ease of reading. These parts of the article are titled Fast Potty Training 101 and Fast Potty Training 102. Fast Potty Training 101 and Fast Potty Training 102 by Wise Dog Blog will outline some simple common sense humane tips that help successfully potty train puppies ages 8 weeks and above. Be wary of anyone trying to sell you a puppy younger than 8 weeks old, as selling puppies younger than that age is against the law in many states for a good reason.

While this is written from the perspective of puppy training; keep in mind this can be used for more than just puppies, although puppies are what many people think of when they hear potty training. This article can be valid for any dog that isn’t fully reliably house trained. Hopefully this article is applicable to anyone regardless of if they just added a new puppy to their life, an older rescue dog, or finally decided they weren’t going to let their current dog go to the bathroom in the house one more day.
Puppies and dogs are smart and will respond to fair, clear, and consistent training. Two of the most important points when training any dog of any age are consistency and predictability by their owners.

As far as potty training goes, I am assuming the people reading this are keeping their dogs indoors as family members and not leaving them in a yard all day.
I do understand some well meaning people believe in leaving their puppy dogs in the yard all day while they are gone. They truly believe this is best for the puppy. However, I have found that is not accurate and can have fatal consequences. After hearing all the stories over the years of the bad things that happen I do not believe in doing that.

Here are a few reasons why I suggest confining your puppy safely in your home rather than in your yard. If you are leaving your puppy in your yard during the day while you are gone be aware that the puppy could easily get stolen as many dogs are stolen each day across the United States. Believe it or not there are people that do this for a living and get money from doing stealing from others. Some people use the dogs for bait when dog fighting. And then some just see the opportunity and take your puppy because your puppy is cute and they want the puppy for themselves as their pet or for someone else in their life. Who knows the reasons dogs get stolen but it happens more than I have the heart to even begin to understand.
Other dangers include the fact that the puppy could be accidently let out of your yard by workers, maintenance people, or because a gate was left ajar or for any numbers of reasons and hit by a car or taken by someone else or get in a dog fight and get injured possibly other dogs could come into your yard that do not have good intentions. And your dog could develop bad habits from sheer boredom like barking all day, fence climbing, digging holes and destroying your landscaping and property, eating siding, and other troublesome behaviors. Sometimes neighbors aren’t nice when they see a dog behind a fence and could tease your dog, which isn’t good mentally for the puppy. Some puppies could fall inside a pool if one is on the property and drown.
Furthermore, some plants are poisonous if eaten and some puppies eat inedible items they shouldn’t consume because they are curious or bored, which can cause impaction that can lead to death. And not to mention the puppies left outside are at the mercy of the weather if left outdoors even with the limited protection of a dog house. Weather such as bad storms and on top of that the dangers of extreme heat and extreme cold are not the best for young puppies. For these reasons and many more not listed please keep your puppy indoors where he or she will be safe in your absence.

It is easier when someone is there with the puppy all day or at least most of the day. It will be much more difficult to housebreak a puppy when the owner(s) are working full time outside of the home.
If the owner(s) are working full time it is imperative that someone comes during lunchtime to break up the day for the puppy. Think about it, a full time day is a lot of time for a puppy to spend alone. Someone should come home at lunch and take care of the puppy, if there are two owners you both can arrange to have your schedule overlap with another adult in the household so the puppy won’t be left alone for longer than 4 hours at a time, or you can ask work to take a longer lunch break and come in earlier or stay later to make up the time. Basically brain storm and communicate to discover what works best for you and your personal situation in order not to leave the puppy alone for excess amounts of time especially when potty training. This will aid in the goal of fast housebreaking. Some other ideas include asking to bring your puppy to work with you, hiring a pet sitter, dog walker, or asking a family member, friend, or neighbor to come in during lunch to relieve the puppy, or putting the puppy in a good doggie daycare. There are many options to make it work for you and your puppy.

Puppies thrive on schedules. Potty training will be easiest on a schedule. Start with putting the puppy on a regular feeding schedule. Do not just leave a bowl of food on the floor, as this will make housetraining harder for everyone. Make sure you are feeding your puppy appropriate amounts of food and not too much or too little as that will effect housetraining your puppy. Younger puppies depending on size and breed need to eat three or four small meals a day. Older puppies can eat twice a day. Be sure to feed these meals at the same time every day. And remember, what goes in must come out. Feeding them on a schedule makes it much easier to accurately predict when they typically need to poop and pee.

To continue with the housebreaking needs concerning food and water I would like to note in some cases if your puppy is otherwise healthy but is a big guzzler of water you can remove most of the water from the water bowls an hour and half before bedtime to help them with their bladder control. Do this only in the beginning while they are potty training. Use common sense and humanity if you do this, if they exercise before bed obviously they will need to drink water during that time period. Just be fair about this if you take up their water. And remember, this is not a long-term thing but a short-term thing for training purposes with some puppies that don’t have a lot of control yet in that area and are otherwise healthy according to a check by your vet.

Please continue to Page 2 for Potty Training 102.

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Wise Kongs 101

There are many varieties of Kong toys. The rubber toys that are hollow in the middle can be used to make special treats for hours of enjoyment as a reward or just as something fun to chew on for dogs and puppies. Make sure the Kong is properly sized for your dog before stuffing the Kong with any treats so they don’t get their mouth stuck and so they don’t accidently swallow the toy. With puppies make sure the Kong is softer as long as your puppy doesn’t tear up the Kongs. Supervise the first times your dog has a filled Kong so you know how they will react. Build up to the harder levels gradually. Start easy so they know the point of a filled Kong. Most food-motivated dogs catch on fast. Easy level stuffing of the Kong dog toy involves simply placing some large or small dog treats in there and then giving it to the dog or maybe smearing some peanut butter, squirt cheese, or cream cheese, on the side of the Kong.

Sometimes dogs can easily get out the treats in a few seconds and need something a bit more challenging. Do you know you can freeze and microwave Kongs? Here are some of the ways I prepare them. Feel free to experiment on your own, the possibilities and combinations for filled flavorful Kong dog toys are numerous.

First start with ingredients:
Banana, nut butters, squirt cheese, low or no sodium broths and stocks, cream cheese, other cheeses, yogurt, meats, hot dog pieces, small amounts of cooked liver, wheat germ, dog safe vegetables and fruits (no onions or grapes), cooked pasta, canned pumpkin without spices, eggs, dried cereals like cheerios, healthy kibbles and canned food, healthy and bland human leftovers, dog treats homemade and store bought, and other things you can think of that are safe for your dog and agree with their system work well.

From there start making combinations. For instance, on hot days I will fill Kongs with low sodium chicken broth for some outside fun. To do this I plug the bottom of the Kong with some peanut butter or yogurt then freeze. Then once frozen I pour in the chicken broth in the Kong then freeze and serve when frozen. An easy frozen treat is to take bigger dog bone cookies and drizzle with yogurt, stuff the Kong toy with these, freeze, then serve. With leftover homemade vegetable pizza I will stuff the Kong with the pizza then melt a slice of cheese over the top in the microwave then serve when cooled. Cheese slices make great binders when microwaving. Make sure you let the Kong cool before serving to your dog when you have micro waved the Kong. Another microwave recipe is to take an egg and mix it with shredded cheese and a slice of cheese on top then microwave for about 25 seconds then let cool and serve.
I will take meats (no spices or marinades) and mix an egg with some wheat germ and stuff the Kong with the mixture and freeze and serve. Yogurt, broths, and nut butters make great binders when freezing. Mixing and mashing a banana, yogurt, and peanut butter together make a great treat as well. You can always layer your Kong for extra fun, for instance, take the Kong and plug the bottom with yogurt, freeze, then take the Kong when frozen and fill with a layer of squirt cheese, then top that with a layer of chicken chunks, then top that with a layer of baby carrots topping those with peanut butter and freeze and serve for frozen for layers of fun. After reading this, you get the idea. There are no right or wrong answers for a Kong treat as long as everything put into them is safe for your dog.

If you have a dog with allergies you will have to be more conservative when it comes to preparing the Kong. With allergy dogs fed dry kibble type dog food you can get their kibbles and soak them in broth or plain water until soft then you can mold the parts with a spoon and smash them down into the Kong. Let the kibbles soak up the water; otherwise it will be more like an ice block. Freeze the Kong for an extra challenging time of getting the food out. If your dog tolerates it, you can mix in flavors in the kibble mixture such as plug the bottom of the Kong with a tiny bit of yogurt and brush some on top and freeze or mix in a small amount of canned pumpkin or nut butter. 100% canned pumpkin without spices helps many dogs with loose stools or constipation when given in small amounts (1TBS per 60 lbs of weight works best on my dogs). If you dog eats canned food then combine that with some dry of the same brand in small amounts and you can mix some of that in the Kong as well and freeze. If you dog eats kibble, try the canned brand of the same variety to add a little special flavor if tolerated.

If you feed a raw food diet, simply place meats and any added mixtures (like pureed vegetables) into the Kong, freeze, then serve. You can add a binding agent such as a banana, canned pumpkin, peanut butter, yogurt, squirt cheese, raw egg, chicken broth, etc. or stuff the meat in there by itself.

Hope this gave you some more ideas for you dogs. Enjoy!
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