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Begin potty training your new puppy the first time they come into the house for a good start to a successful training program. Potty training should begin around three weeks of age, when the puppies are able to go to the bathroom on their own, unfortunately most breeders do not begin the training process at this time, so it is up to you to train them.

If you are lucky enough to have a breeder that gets the puppy started on potty training, then you should pretty much have your work cut out for you, and the potty training should go along much easier. Puppies learn to dislike their own bodily fluids when they begin to be potty trained when they are extremely young. Because of this dislike, they won’t want to pee or poop where they sleep or in their immediate living space, which makes it easier to potty train them.

Unfortunately, this early potty training is not that common among puppies. Generally, owners do not receive puppies younger than six weeks old, maybe even older. Most of the puppies enter their new home without having any potty training experience, and are still using the bathroom where they sleep and live, and thus, may be much more challenging to train. The more potty training they have received, the less difficult it will be to fully train them.

It’s important to begin potty training your new puppy the minute they get to their new home. Begin teaching the puppy where they should relieve themselves immediately, but avoid using scare tactics, as this could make the puppy more difficult to manage. You will want to do this to meet two basic goals.

To let the puppy know that there are specific places that are acceptable to potty in, and other places that are absolutely not. Like children, puppies need repetition in order to grasp such concepts. The second reason is that allowing them to potty wherever they choose will only lead to the puppy thinking that their behavior is acceptable, and they will continue to follow this pattern. The future consequences of this will be extremely problematic.

Your potty training efforts with your puppy will go much smoother if you are reinforcing the proper and improper times and places to use the bathroom, as soon as the puppy comes to live in your home. To avoid confusion, you will do best to establish a potty training procedure for your puppy, and follow that program until the potty training is complete. Repetition is the biggest way from which dogs learn, so when training them consistency is key. So when it comes time to work with your puppy, decide on the method that you want to use and be sure to stick with it.

If you are starting from scratch in potty training your puppy, or if you find that you are having to work on undoing some inappropriate behaviors, your puppy’s potty training may take quite a while. This is the reason it is imperative to begin training your puppy as soon as you can. Your puppy will be trained sooner, and with less difficulty if you do this.

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