Most of the time house training is a simple enough process. It does, however, require lots of patience. The main principles of house training (watch your dog, react in the correct way to whatever happens, schedule walks, feeding, and water) are easy enough to understand but knowing the training principles is one thing and implementing them effectively is a different story.

House Training with a Crate

Things you will need to house train your dog:

• A Crate-large enough only for your dog to stand, lay down and turn around in
• A Leash
• Your shoes and coat stashed near by
• The ability to pay attention
• Energy to complete the task

Things that you might need:

• Shaker can (coke can with pennies inside, and duct tape on top)
• Squire bottle or water gun. Filled with water.

This house training approach will work for any dog that eliminates indoors, but will not go if he is in a crate. I have used this approach with dogs of all ages. I can guarantee that this approach will work with any dog that will not eliminate in a crate. With this training and like all training, the key is consistency. If you stick with it and don’t give up, it will work .

We will use the crate because we know that the dog will not eliminate when in the crate, which we will use to our advantage. We put the dog in the crate whenever we are not watching him. We schedule when the dog will be out for walks, runs, play sessions and we know when that dog will be out to hang around in the house.
Your dog will need to be watched anytime he is out of the crate. Especially in the beginning it is important to pay close attention to him. Every dog has a signal that they give right before they eliminate. The signal might be a quick circle, a lot of sniffing, scratching the ground, or abruptly leaving your sight. Their signal can be any change in behavior that looks different than the behavior directly before it. The idea is to learn your dog’s signal so that you can interrupt it earlier in the process. You should learn to predict at the first sign that your dog is going to have an accident, and interrupt him before he completely evacuates his system. We do not want him to have the comfortable feeling of evacuating his system when inside the house. We need to make it clear that eliminating in the house is unwanted and not as comfortable for him as going outside. It just continues to require attention!
Check back for more updates and steps which are crucial in house training your dog.