It’s a serious business having a puppy or a dog. Sure it’s fun but expect there to be work involved as well. And one of the first jobs you’ll need to tackle when you have a new puppy or dog in the house is to house break your puppy. It can be less than fun to house break puppies.

Surprisingly it’s not hard, but it can be unless you know what you’re doing.

And if you don’t get it right it can be a bit of a disaster for puppy and for you and for the entire household.

And you may not even be trying to house train a puppy. For some reason or other you may have just acquired an adult dog, and need to house train him. Now of course that’s quite possible too, but can be a disaster if you don’t know what you’re doing.

I’m short of space here to give you all the steps for house breaking puppies and dogs, and I like to keep those secrets for my website. But there’s a few points that I can make about it.

Firstly remember that you rule the house. In your dog or puppy’s eyes you are the boss dog, you need to remember that. It is you who sets the rules and you who enforces them. This certainly doesn’t mean that you punish your dog for breaking the rules of potty training, punishment isn’t effective, but it does mean that you should learn exactly what you need to do to potty train your puppy, then follow through consistently.

But you do need to be firm and consistent setting the rules.

Instead of punishing your dog for a breach of the rules you need to use positive reinforcement. In the past it the accepted wisdom was to show him the rules, for example where his potty place was, then punish him for every breach till he got it right. This can take a long time and subject you both to a lot of stress.

And remember, every dog or puppy is different. For some it will take almost no time at all to potty train him. For others it will take much longer. Be prepared for this and accept that it will take as long as it takes, even if you are doing everything right.

Expect it to take a while, be happy if it doesn’t rather than the other way round.

Remember like lots of other things it’s the process that matters. Learn the right process, follow it consistently and it will work, when it works.

It’s a simple process. Learn how to housebreak puppy, follow the procedure consistently and keep at it for as long as you need. Find out more about house breaking puppies on my website.