Potty Training a Puppy – Dealing with Puppy Accidents

How you deal with accidents greatly determines how your puppy will be potty trained. For example, if you discover your puppy has gone to the bathroom on your rug inside, your first reaction may be to punish the puppy.

This often backfires because when your puppy is really young, he can’t really hold it and often doesn’t know he has to go potty until it’s too late, and usually a new puppy will not know why you are punishing him and will become confused. Punishing a puppy rarely works, and often makes potty training a puppy even harder to do.

The best thing to do when potty training a puppy, especially a young one, is to ignore the fact that he made a mess in your house and just clean it up with a good pet sanitizer so he won’t smell the scent and go potty in that same spot. If you completely ignore your puppy while cleaning up his mess, it will send a message to him that what he did was not good and he will try harder to avoid doing it again.

Next time you take your puppy outside to his potty spot, be sure to praise and reward him for the effort so you can help him understand that this is where he should go potty. Dogs respond much better to positive reinforcement then negative so punishing him makes it harder for him to learn what to do.

When potty training a puppy keep in mind that accidents do happen and part of raising a puppy is teaching him the right way to do things so he can avoid making any mistakes when he is older.