House Training, Part 1

There's a lot of excitement when bringing a new puppy home, but probably no one is excited to begin house training.  Whether you're a veteran or a newbie at teaching a puppy the appropriate place to go, in a few weeks you'll be wishing for just a two minute span where you could communicate in English with your puppy and explain, "Look, just go to the door and bark once when you need to go.  Then do your business outside.  That's all you have to do!" 

I thought it might be helpful to give you a glimpse into what we do to get your puppy ready for house training.  We use the Misty Method.  The idea of the Misty Method is to teach puppies there is a place to sleep, a place to play/eat, and place to do your business.  We set up their area in three sections: a sleeping area, a play/eat area, and a potty area. 

Sleep area is the top left, play area to the left of center, and the potty area to the right

For the first 2 weeks of life, they only need a sleeping area because Jolly takes care of their toileting needs.  (I won't go into detail on just how she does that; you can google that, if you're curious.)  Around 2-3 weeks when they become mobile, we open up their area to give them the three places I mentioned.  It is amazing how they naturally don't want to go where they eat and sleep.  They also like to go away from the group to their business.  Now, they don't get it right every time.  Sometimes when they are eating, one will want to get away from the group & heads into the sleeping area.  But, a lot of them get it where it needs to be on the newspaper.  (We are going through so much newspaper, we're asking relatives to save old ones for us!)  To help them learn to go on the newspaper, we layer fresh newspaper over the business to allow a clean area for the puppies, but yet leaving the scent of the potty area.  We also try to catch them after they eat because they often need to eliminate right after they eat.

An example of the Misty Method at work...I was taking photos of their pen for this post.  Sadie & Nikki were both sleeping, but awakened by the camera flash and noise.  Without any help from me, they both toddled from the play area into the toilet area to their business.  Good girls!

With the Misty Method, we are giving your puppy the concept of not soiling their sleep and play area.  When you take the puppy home, they will have the concept, but they will need to learn to apply it in their new surroundings.

My next post will give you some ideas on how to begin house training once they are with your family.  Thanks for stopping by!

Murray taking a snooze

Sadie sleeping peacefully while Jack watches on

Digger posing for me