Owner Absent Housebreaking

Owner Absent Housebreaking or What If I’m Out Earning a Living?

As I mentioned a moment ago, the program I have just described makes the very big assumption that you are home a better part of the day and are able to make this highly regimented routine happen. I understand that this often is not the case and that there are circumstances that can complicate the effort to establish a solid housebreaking routine. If you are forced to be away from home most of the day you’ll need to use a different approach to housetraining.

Begin by finding a small area where you can confine the pup during the day. This area should be large enough to contain the dog’s crate, water dish, toys and an area to play in. You can create such an area in a number of ways. Begin by simply picking a room, such as the kitchen, which has a hardwood, tile or linoleum floor and cordon it off from the rest of your house by closing the doors or using baby gates. You can section off a piece of hallway using baby gates or something called an “ex-pen” (short for exercise pen), a collapsible folding metal or plastic enclosure, to create a play area for the dog. Try, if possible, not to lock the pup in a small room such as a bathroom by closing the door. This can make him feel visually cut off from the rest of your house and thus imprisoned. A baby gate or ex-pen allows the puppy visual access to a greater area and diminishes his sense of being trapped while a closed door often does exactly the opposite.

Whatever approach to confinement you use, be sure to cover the entire area available to the pup with newspapers. Not only will this make it easy for you to clean up the mess, it will begin to habituate the pup to going on the papers. At first you’ll find that the pup will randomly eliminate all over the place without any seeming rhyme or reason. Not only that, he will most likely also derive a great deal of pleasure from tearing apart all the carefully laid out newspapers with the efficiency of a White House paper shredder. Like it or not, that’s just part of it. What you will also find, however, is that as the days and weeks wear on the pup will begin to show a preference for certain areas in which to eliminate. When this begins to happen you can start reducing the amount of paper you put in his enclosure, covering the floor only around the areas where the pup has shown an inclination to do his business. Do this in small increments, slowly reducing the size of the covered area. If you find that the pup starts peeing next to the papers you’ve gone too fast and should again increase the coverage accordingly. Sooner or later you will find that the pup starts targeting the papers systematically and will likely even seek them out when he is not confined to his play area.

If you have a small dog and your goal is simply to paper-train him in the house your job is more or less done. Of course you’ll still have to follow the rules of housebreaking outlined above, i.e., confine, supervise, and regulate, making sure you get your pup to the papers when he needs to go, while you’re home until you’ve attained your housebreaking benchmarks but essentially, you’re home free.

However, if your goal is to ultimately have him eliminate outside and wean him off the papers, there’s more to do. Begin by moving the papers closer to the door in very small increments, perhaps just an inch a day. If your puppy is suddenly missing the papers move them back to the previous spot and keep working from there. The goal, of course, is to ultimately get the papers outside and teach the pup to begin eliminating there. Once he is used to this you’ll be able to remove the papers and your pup will be well on his way to being house trained. This will become increasingly easy for him to do as he gets older and attains greater bladder and bowel control. Again, confine, supervise and regulate until your housebreaking benchmarks have been satisfied.

Of course, if your dog is confined for eight hours a day – something I don’t recommend as a steady diet – then weaning him off the papers can be rather difficult since he’ll be so habituated to going on them that he’ll have no incentive to stop even when other alternatives are available. If your life situation prevents you from getting your dog out you should, as he gets older (definitely no sooner than the end of his inoculations), consider getting him a mid-day dog walker. Not only will he get much needed exercise and stimulation this way, he’ll also have the opportunity to relieve himself at approximately four hour intervals and this, of course, will be tremendously helpful in your efforts at housebreaking. Once the mid-day outing is a part of his routine you can try to reduce the size of his indoor area significantly thus giving him the incentive, due to his nesting instinct, to contain himself. This shouldn’t be too difficult if he’s had vigorous exercise during his outing since he’ll most likely fall asleep until you come home and take him out.

A Doggie Door and the Self Training Pup

The biggest problem with paper training, and the reason that I seek to avoid in all but the most necessary situations, is that it teaches the dog not just to use the papers but to eliminate in the house. For this reason, if the goal is to ultimately get the dog outside to eliminate, I am always looking for different approaches to accomplishing this based both on the owner’s schedule and the layout of the home.

One of the most useful housetraining aids for the “owner-absent” puppy is a doggie door. If you have a deck or a yard of any kind a doggie door can help teach the pup to eliminate outside even if you’re not there. Here’s how to set it up. Take a crate, remove it’s door and put it up to the doggie door so that its opening fits around the entirety of the doggie door. Then put something heavy behind the crate to ensure that it stays firmly wedged up against the opening no matter what the pup is doing inside. On the other side of the doggie door, the outdoor side, put an x-pen that is arranged such that once the pup is outside he’ll automatically find himself within its confines – a sizeable area within which he can relieve himself. I have had excellent results with this approach since the pup’s nesting instinct will drive him to seek an area outside of his crate to eliminate. The only place he can go outside of his crate in this scenario is also outside of the house. It’s automatic. He steps out of his crate and he’s outdoors. With the ex-pen there he’s securely enclosed but he can begin to become habituated to going potty under an open sky rather than under a roof. This basic concept can be adapted in various ways to the physical layout of many homes. If you have a small deck you may not need an x-pen. If you have sliding glass doors you may not need a doggie door although doggie doors that fit into sliding glass doors are also available. Take a look at your situation and see if you can make this kind of arrangement work for you and thus condition your dog to eliminating outside as soon as possible. (put sidebar with R.C. Steele, Drs. Foster and Smith and other doggie supply catalogs).

Before going further I’d like to summarize the alternatives outlined above.

Summary

— Enclose the pup in an area with a non-porous surface such as linoleum, tile or hardwood.
— Cover the entire area with papers.
— As time goes by narrow the coverage of the papers to the areas the pup routinely chooses to eliminate.
— When you are with the pup continue to abide by the three pillars: confine, supervise, and regulate. Make sure to get him to his papers when he needs to go until he starts doing so on his own.
— Gradually start moving the papers towards the door and then get them outside. Once the pup starts looking for his papers outside you can begin to fade them out.
— Use a dog walker, once your pup has had all his shots, to break up his day and give him an opportunity to eliminate outside.
— Use a doggie door by pushing your pup’s crate, minus the door, up to it and having an ex-pen on the other side. This will essentially force him to eliminate outside.
— Keep your housebreaking benchmarks in mind. Your pup can’t be considered reliably housebroken until:
— He’s six to eight months of age and
— Hasn’t had any accidents in the house for two months.

In the preceding pages I have covered 98% of all conceivable housetraining situations. Diligent application of these principles will lead you to a housetrained puppy relatively quickly. Remember, and I am repeating this only for emphasis, that you cannot consider your pup reliably housebroken until he’s six to eight months of age and he’s had no accidents in the house for two months. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop having accidents way before then – you should if you’re diligent about confining, supervising and regulating – it just means that given the opportunity your pup may still eliminate in the house.