How to Potty Train a Puppy or Adult Dog

This article was written to teach you how to potty train a puppy or adult dog. This is one of the most confusing and anxiety-ridden areas of dog training is puppy potty training. That initial few months of getting up in the middle of the night, taking the puppy or new adult dog out, rewarding them, and bringing them in is not anyone’s idea of a good time.

Dogs are, by instinct, very clean animals. They would rather not soil any areas where they normally sleep or eat.

Dogs are also creatures of habit -- they like to know where they’re supposed to go and when.

If the dog is taught to eliminate on gravel or concrete, they will tend to look for either of those surfaces to do so. If they’re taught to eliminate on grass or dirt, that’s where they will choose. Use these habits to your advantage.

Step One: How to Potty Train a Puppy by Using a Safe Space or Crate

Whatever you want to call it, a space where your dog will go whenever you can’t watch them is your first priority.

Ideally you should have this ready to go before the dog even comes home with you, as part of happily transitioning a new dog into your home. However, life happens, and sometimes you have to make due with a bathroom or a blockaded space in the kitchen.

Quick Tips on Crate Training

  • The area needs to be small and confined. Your dog or puppy should be able to walk into the space and turn around, but it shouldn’t be bigger than that. You want it small enough that they can’t pee or defecate in one corner just to go sleep in the other. Remember, we’re relying on their sense of cleanliness!
  • At first, use old towels for a makeshift bed. Nothing so small they can swallow. After your dog has slept in it for the first week or so without urinating or anything, you can get a dog bed.
  • Spend some time with this new space. Play with your dog in it, feed them in it, have them sleep in it.
  • Don’t worry if your dog eliminates in this area at first. Once they figure out that this is where they sleep and eat, they’ll stop going there. See Step Four: Cement the Potty Spot for steps to take when your dog goes in their crate/chill area.

Step Two: How to Potty Train a Puppy with a Toilet Area and ‘Go Potty’

Now you need to determine where the potty training spot will be, presumably in your yard somewhere. Whenever you potty train puppy, you go to this one spot. 

See my post about creating a designated potty spot so your dog doesn't ruin your lawn here.

Teaching 'Go Potty' // Dog Potty Training

  • Take your dog to the designated potty spot.
  • Wait until they potty. If they don't go within 5-10 minutes, take them inside, put them in their safe spot / crate, and wait 10 minutes, then try again. Repeat until they go.
  • When they start to urinate or defecate, immediately say ‘good potty’ or whatever your phrase is for going to the bathroom. ONLY say it after they’ve started going. This is the same rule used for all training, not just how to potty train a puppy. You should always try to say the command word AS the dog does the trick, not before or after.
  • After a few days of saying ‘good potty’ when they go, you can try saying ‘go potty’ when you get to the designated spot. Make sure to say it in exactly the same tone as before, and quickly change to ‘good potty’ when they start to go.

This is a great way to curb peeing in the house, since the dog will start to assume it should go when you say so. 

You can even use different terms for going number one and number two to get your dog to do them on command. Crazy, right? House training puppy is actually more about habit than anything else!


Products Helpful with Dog Potty Training


Step Three: How to Potty Train a Puppy by Establishing a Feeding and Potty Schedule

If your dog is in the habit of being fed at certain times, the natural process of elimination will also begin to occur at certain times. Once you learn when those times relate to the eating times, it will become much easier for you to guide the dog to the established toilet area and get them to go potty.

As a general rule of thumb, most puppies will need to go within 30 minutes to an hour of eating, and adult dogs will need to go within 30 minutes to three hours. I know, much bigger window!

Do you want my actual schedule for puppy potty training? It's included in my book, "Help! My dog won’t stop… A Guide to Fixing Dog Behavior Problems" which is currently on sale here.

Step Four: How to Potty Train a Puppy by Cementing the Potty Spot

One of the best ways to really clarify the potty spot’s location for your dog is to move any errant placed feces or urine to the spot.

Whenever they go anywhere else, take either toilet paper or paper towels and move the expelled substance to their designated outdoor potty spot. Next, praise them – YES, praise them – for being so good and going in their potty spot, even though you and I both know they didn’t. Leave the urine-soaked paper or dog poo there for a few hours so the scent permeates the spot. Your favorite thing, I’m sure. 😉

I know this is strange, but it's a surefire way to potty train puppy!

Note: Do NOT reprimand your dog for going inside. Honestly, I’ve tried it both ways (yelling at them and the above move-the-poo method) and being angry doesn’t work. They don’t get it.

You wouldn’t yell at a baby for pooping in their diaper, why yell at your baby dog? If it makes you really angry, leave them in their crate for a minute and walk away to get a hold of yourself. No one said potty training a puppy would be easy!

Trust me, every dog owner goes through a period of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde… Sometimes you love them, sometimes you still love them but can’t understand why they’re torturing you with diarrhea and chewed up furniture and ugh! So yeah, put them in a time-out and take a breath, don’t do anything you’ll regret.

Oh, and remember how your parents would rub their noses in it? Studies are now showing that this is why dogs eat their own feces. They think you’re telling them to eat it, or just torturing them. Yeah, so don’t do that. 😉

Tips and Tricks for How to Potty Train a Puppy from a Lifetime of Dog Rearing

  • Exercising your dog will almost definitely make it have to go. Use this to your advantage and remember it the next time your dog is prancing around like a deer on coke.
  • Don’t let the dog go anywhere without you. Attach them to your hip – literally. Use a leash. This way if they squat, you can immediately grab them and take them out to their actual potty spot.
  • When your dog squats and you catch them, clap and loudly yell ‘NO!’ This will startle them into stopping, usually. Pick them up and take them outside to their spot, then when they go give them all the praise. All of it.
  • When you start letting your dog off-leash in the house, start with one small space that you are in, eg. the office. Expand it by one room/small area every week or two until they can roam the whole house without leaving you little happy presents. 🙂

I hope this helped you potty train puppy! These steps worked for me and many others, but they don’t necessarily work for all dogs, especially older dogs with their own ingrained schedules. If this is the case for you and your dog, be flexible. Write down when they go, where they go, what surface it’s on, etc. Be a scientist and use this to your advantage.

Good luck,

Cassie Mackin with Dog

Our pets are a responsibility, not a privilege. We have to give them the best lives possible, if only to pay them back for all the wonder they give us.

-- Cassie Mackin

2 Comments

  1. […] have a ton of articles on puppy potty training, dealing with separation anxiety, and training a puppy in […]

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