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Potty training a Shih Tzu puppy can be a challenge, especially if you’re new to raising this small dog breed. That’s because the usual punishment can you can dish out to a medium-sized dog may not work on this breed. It’s related, for the most part, to the Shih Tzu personality, as punishing it could only make things worse - the dog could withdraw from people. Worse, it may do the exact opposite of what you’re trying to train it not to do.

A Shih Tzu puppy will relieve itself when it can, and will, at the start, have little control over when that happens. You’d better prepare and area in your home as the designated potty area or station, because that’s where your going to bring your pup the moment up sense it preparing to poop or pee. You’re going to have to do a lot of fire-fighting in the beginning, as this puppy tends to do its business every few hours. We can’t always be there watching it forever, so keeping it confined in an area with newspapers is the next best thing.

When you do watch over your pup, you need to look for some signs it’s about to go. The usual signs include whining and crying, sniffing the floor, and being generally anxious. When you notice any of these signs, be prudent and bring it to the newspaper-covered area of your home to let the pup do it’s business.

It’s also possible to note the times when it does do it’s business and make it a point to bring it outdoors or to the potty station. The usual times include just after they eat and after a nap. If you can accustom it to being brought out after a nap or after eating, it may soon want to do exactly that. And that’s good. Whenever your pup moves on its own toward the potty area, you need to praise it lavishly, because it may take a long time for that to happen.

You need to lavishly praise your puppy ever time it does the right thing. It’s not likely that you can train your dog to do what you want, in the usual fetch-dog way; probably something to do with this breed’s personality. A dog like that is known for being difficult to train by punishment, instead it has to want to keep doing what it likes to do, so that means positive reinforcement for when it pees and poops in the right spot.

The moment you see your pup trying to move to the spot where newspapers are, trying to hold it in as long as it can, that’s a good sign. Don’t expect to wake up the next morning to a well-trained dog, that just doesn’t happen. You can do what many veteran Shih Tzu owners do: they plan and maintain activities, routines, that create opportunities for the dog to relieve itself in ways you can manage the clean up, and then they praise the dog for doing what it I’d.

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