Housebreaking
Housebreaking or potty training your pup is a must for harmonious living indoors with the family. Eliminating indoors just is not acceptable in human culture and it is up to you as your dog’s care giver to help him understand how to adapt to life in the home. Going potty in the correct place every time is the goal!
Dogs are creatures of habit, and are opportunist they do what works. Helping them do both is key. Set your dog or puppy up to succeed in housebreaking first by using the crate training method. Once your dog is comfortable in using the crate, you can bring that tool into the equation to help prevent indoor potty accidents. Help him create a habit out of going potty in the correct place by creating and sticking to a canine schedule.
Schedule
Your canine schedule may include only potty breaks and meal times if your dog is an adult. If he is still a puppy, though, you will also want to include training and play time to help your little one develop into a proper canine citizen. A puppy will need to eliminate about every two hours. He will also need to go right after eating and drinking, after play, and before bedtime. If you ever need to leave the home for some time, make sure he potties before you leave him in his crate to prevent accidents, and he should be allowed to go immediately after you arrive back home.
Until a puppy reaches about 4 to 6 months of age, his ability to fully control his potty needs just doesn’t exist. He has not fully developed physically, so it is up to you to read his body language and take him outside or onto a potty pad when he needs it. A puppy may walk in circles with his nose to the floor, sniffing for a place to potty. If you notice this behavior, take him out immediately! If he’s small enough, you can scoop him up in your arms and carry him to make sure he does the right thing!
If your dog is an adult or over 7 months of age, his potty breaks may range around every two hours. However, still allow him to potty after meals, play time, first thing in the morning and last thing before bed time.
Accidents
Any animal in training is bound to have accidents. It’s just part of the territory! You’re learning your dog’s personality and your dog is learning how to live in harmony with the family. How you react to his accidents can further his training or impede it.
It can be easy to become frustrated or even angry when your dog or puppy makes a mess on the rug. However, rubbing his nose in the mess, yelling at him or punishing him by putting him the crate will do nothing to help solve the problem of potty accidents! In fact, this kind of punishment is confusing and very scary for any dog or puppy. He will not understand that going potty inside is wrong, but will learn to avoid you when a mess is on the floor. Instead, take your dog out to finish his business and clean up the mess as best as possible. An enzymatic cleaner will best cleanse any residual odors to prevent attracting messes there in the future.
If you catch your pup in the act, make a loud and startling noise to interrupt him. If he is urinating, he should stop almost immediately. Dogs cannot stop in the middle of defecating, though, so it’s best to just clean up after.
Success
Taking measures to prevent accidents through use of crating and creating an ideal potty schedule will help to prevent accidents and bad potty habits with your dog or puppy. This schedule and prevention process will instill positive habits and ensure a lasting bond with you and your dog.
So is this suggesting that simply using the schedule will be enough or is it implicitly suggesting to use an event marker/positive reinforcement? Is it best to try to at least use an event marker whenever you see them potty outside. I feel like when you go on a walk and they are marking every few feet it seems counterproductive to reinforce every time, so would you reinforce on an interval starting at 2 hours and working up to only reinforcing peeing 4 hours after the last time? With pooping, you mentioned them not being able to stop mid poop, so does that mean that when they go poop multiple times on a walk this is due to something out of their control like digestive distress or anxiety, and it’s still beneficial to use an event marker as reinforcement every time they poop (as long as they don’t eat it) even if it’s on the same walk.
Is there anything special with adopting older dogs? Our dog is a four-year old that the rescue said was fully potty-trained. We knew that the stress of the move might interrupt her potty-training but the first few days she had no accidents. However, now she’s had a few, so we were wondering whether it’s because we weren’t reinforcing partying outside enough (thus us trying out the reinforcement regime above) or whether we should’ve stayed at every 2 hours for more than the first couple days and stretching the interval more slowly?
“So is this suggesting that simply using the schedule will be enough or is it implicitly suggesting to use an event marker/positive reinforcement?”
An event marker (clicker) is letting the dog know what they just did in that moment got them the reinforcer. An event marker is great for teaching dogs new behaviors or shaping behaviors (small approximations). Sounds like your dog is going potty outside (marking) therefore praising will be good or praise and treats. You can also use the event marker if we are still in potty training mode. An event marker can be a clicker or a word like YES. The more we use an event marker the quicker the dog learns what behavior is getting them the reinforcer. Most trainers will use the event marker when instilling new behaviors or shaping behaviors. Once a behavior is proofed they move to praise and other reinforcers etc food, tug
Note: Look up reinforcement schedules and hierarchies.
“Is it best to try to at least use an event marker whenever you see them potty outside. I feel like when you go on a walk and they are marking every few feet it seems counterproductive to reinforce every time, so would you reinforce on an interval starting at 2 hours and working up to only reinforcing peeing 4 hours after the last time?”
Always reinforce good behaviors with either praise or whatever the dog perceives as reinforcement etc praise, food, tug and the harder the behavior higher value reinforcer (see note above). If the dog is marking outside he definitely understands it’s ok to go potty outside therefore praise will be good enough. Seems like your dog is just not 100% potty trained in your new home and confused. (See below)
“With pooping, you mentioned them not being able to stop mid poop, so does that mean that when they go poop multiple times on a walk this is due to something out of their control like digestive distress or anxiety, and it’s still beneficial to use an event marker as reinforcement every time they poop (as long as they don’t eat it) even if it’s on the same walk.”
You can always reinforce good behaviors with praise, food, treat, tug, fetch each dog will let us know what’s reinforcing. Dogs always default to the most reinforced behaviors. I have seen dogs poop twice on a walk and you will have to ask your vet for any concerns on consistency or how frequent they potty.
“Is there anything special with adopting older dogs? Our dog is a four-year old that the rescue said was fully potty-trained. We knew that the stress of the move might interrupt her potty-training but the first few days she had no accidents. However, now she’s had a few, so we were wondering whether it’s because we weren’t reinforcing partying outside enough (thus us trying out the reinforcement regime above) or whether we should’ve stayed at every 2 hours for more than the first couple days and stretching the interval more slowly?”
This could be a generalization issue and I would definitely recommend going over potty training again and your dog should pick it up quickly. Dogs don’t generalize good therefore if I teach a sit in the kitchen it would mean something totally different in the living room. If I add distance, duration or distractions again that sit means something different to the dog. Therefore we teach a sit in all different environmental context until they relies they have to it everywhere when asked. Many dogs move to new homes and don’t generalize the rules of not going Potty In our new home (den).
Therefore go back to basic potty training with confinement and clean up with white vinegar or the stuff they sell in pet stores. Your dog should pick up potty training quickly especially if he was potty trained before. Hope this helps…
Review: Reinforce going outside with praise and treats. You can if you like use the clicker (event marker) just remember it’s like taking a picture of the behavior you want. An event marker is a bridge to the reinforcer.
I would also take your dog out more and you can also capture the behavior and put a word to it which I find helps dogs understand where to go. So every time your dog goes potty you can say softly “potty” then praise treat when done. Capture this behavior for a week or two and when you say potty your dog will understand it’s ok to potty.
Hope this helps…and don’t forget management inside the house to control accidents by confining to one area. Crate training will also help with potty training.
When you mentioned hierarchies is this the kind of thing you meant: https://youaut-aknow.com/how-to-create-a-reinforcer-hierarchy/ ?
I’m assuming the most important aspect of this is to consider what reinforcers the dog is getting from elsewhere in their environment are competing with the reinforcement you are intentionally giving to change behavior. For instance, if eating poop turns out to be high-value and my praise is so far only mid-value then would I have to find an even higher value reinforcer to train her to leave her poop or would that not necessarily be the case by combining it with the training management technique of not allowing her to successfully eat the poop through leash control, so that she has less hope to get the poop and the reinforcement schedule is hopefully close enough to extinction, so that an individual successful poop-eating’s high-value won’t matter compared to the more consistent reinforcement with a mid-value reinforcer for leaving the poop?
The linked article is exactly what is meant by a reinforcement hierarchy. The harder the behavior the higher the reinforcement.
And yes are always competing with the environment when it comes to reinforcers.
Poop eating is a tough one and what I find to be easiest program to be on is managements. Do not let them eat the poop and leave can work if it’s proofed enough and depends on each individual dog. They also sell pills to add to food which makes the poop taste nasty. I would also double check diet because sometimes something is missing from the diet. Just a few reasons why a dog will eat poop.
Also with extinction we always hope any desired behaviors go extinct especially after we replace an undesired behavior with a desired behavior.
Manage the poop eater so they can never eat the poop. Have a strong proofed leave it can definitely help and work. The pills would probably get you there faster and have even greater work with all these together. Ask vet and research the pills.