3 easy steps to educate your puppy at home

When I was a kid, we just didn’t have dogs or cats in the house. My parents were firm believers that these creatures belonged outside. Those were basically the thoughts I adopted as well. So when we got my own place and our dogs, they stayed outside according to my long tradition. But as I got older I thought it would be nice to have a small dog to sit on our lap while we relaxed on the couch, a little companion. The only problem was, how do you train this fellow? I thought this was a no brainer, I would only get one that was already trained. So we did, we adopted a dauschund, or as my daughter likes to say, a “dachshund” in need of a new home. So we got this idiot who was already house trained and it worked, well okay, not great. Fortunately, there weren’t TOO MANY crowds in the house. Sometimes a dog that is housebroken and moves to a new home likes to mark his territory. In the end, we gave that dog to an older couple because he just wouldn’t join our family. It was a failed experiment.

A few years later we tried again. A friend was moving away to college and couldn’t take her small dog (a dauschund again) with her. This one did pretty well. I’m not sure he ever relieved himself in the house, so with THIS dog our plan worked. It used to amuse us the way she would dance on the doorstep whenever she needed to go out. Then a couple of years later, my oldest daughter asked us if we wanted a pug. One of her in-laws had a male and a female pug that were about to have puppies. I thought to myself, “you know, they’re so ugly they’re cute,” so I told her we’d take one. At that time, I didn’t really think about the topic of house training. I guess I thought we’d cross that bridge when we got to it.

Then a couple of months later our little pug, Truman, arrived. Now came the difficult part. How do we teach him to take care of his business outside of him? After a week or two, we were getting tired of the masses in the house, so I started looking for ways to get this dog to behave! I remember being told to stick my nose in his mess and slap them on the butt saying “no” very firmly. I had also been given a few other tricks that were sure ways to correct our situation. Trust me, none of them worked. But it didn’t take long until we discovered a method that worked and fixed the problem. It was our oldest daughter who gave these few tips. Once we found what worked, our problem was fixed within a week. This is what I recommend:

  • The first and most important thing is to get a doghouse or cage.. You can get them relatively cheaply at many department stores. The crate should be big enough for the dog to sleep in, but no bigger (if you’re training a puppy, just be sure to take into account how big the dog will be when fully grown, otherwise it will overgrow ). box). I started locking my pug puppy in the crate every night before bed and then taking him out first thing in the morning. Crate training is effective because a dog will not relieve himself in his sleeping compartment. One good thing about a crate or kennel is that the dog has a place of his own. Our pug actually seems to like her kennel, climbing into it himself almost every night (although we don’t think it’s necessary to lock him up in it anymore).
  • Second, take the dog out first thing in the morning.. It is important that you send the dog outside immediately after letting him out of the crate each morning. It usually doesn’t take long for most dogs to figure it all out (although I’ve heard that Jack Russell Terriers can be difficult to housebreak).
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  • Lastly, if your dog messes up, clean it up right away and give it a good clean.. Your dog will most likely have a few “accidents” along the way, especially early on. But don’t lose hope, house training is only a few days away! It’s important to do a thorough cleaning job and try to remove any residual odors, as the dog could smell what he did and think that’s the place to do his activities.

So that’s basically it. The three keys we used to homeschool our puppy worked perfectly. Give it a try, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. As I mentioned, Truman was trained in about a week and has been steady for over a year.

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