Yesterday Robin and I were in Canton visiting a new Home Dog Training Client and his cute Great Dane puppy named Thor. Thor was full of life, and like most Great Dane puppies, was “mostly ears and paws”. He was only ten weeks old, so we mostly worked on socialization and setting up proper behavior. He also had some large issues with making potty mistakes in the house, so we spent a great deal of time reviewing the potty process and setting up schedules and expectations. Our client was very happy, but had one issue. He understood that Thor could only “hold it” for so long because he was a puppy. He worked in Atlanta and his work days were often very long. He wondered if he could ever successfully potty train Thor when he was gone for most of the day during the week.
We told him that Robin and I completely understand that “life happens” and many times our clients are not able get home to let their little puppy out to go potty. We always tell our clients to observe the rule of thumb that the number of hours a puppy can “hold it” is their age in months. (After 8 months, that is where it stops…) So what can our clients do when they have young puppy and they have to work and won’t be home for twelve hours?
We first tell our clients not to leave them in the crate. An important part of the crate training process and potty training is encouraging the client’s puppy not to potty in his crate. As long as he stays within the limits of his puppy’s physical abilities, this is a pretty easy process. If he surpasses the puppy’s physical limits to hold it, the puppy will go in his crate. This will undermine this part of the potty training process.
For these “long away times”, we tell out clients that they must find an area where they can allow their puppy to potty. It must be enclosed and away from their puppy’s normal “roam of the house”. We suggest a bath room or washer/dryer room. They should pick up any rug and remove anything that their puppy “could get into” (toilet paper, boxes on the ground, etc.). If they want, they could even put down a wee-wee pad just to see if their puppy would use it. We always suggest that our client gets a dog gate to enclose the area so it won’t appear so confining.
When our client has to be away from the house for extended periods of time longer than their puppy’s “ability to hold it”, they put him in that area. If he potties, they have a small area to clean and they haven’t damaged their crate training process.
They must always clean the area well with an enzyme cleaner like Nature’s Miracle and then a normal cleaner like Lavender Fabuloso. Except when they are away and the puppy is in the designated area, their puppy is never allowed in that area.
Please contact Robin or myself at (770) 718-7704 so we can help with all your dog training problems. We have a lot of good dog training advice at Best Dog Trainers Canton Georgia. Find all our phone numbers, text addresses and email contacts at Dog Training Help Center Canton Georgia.
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