Puppy Potty Training 101

Start your puppy off on the right paw by using proven potty training techniques!

Schedule

By Nils Fretwurst (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Make a schedule for your puppy's potty breaks.  A young puppy (under 10 weeks of age) will need to go out to potty as often as once every 15 minutes while awake.  If you start with frequent potty breaks you will avoid any accidents and as you get to know your puppy's habits you can adjust their schedule to fit them.  If you notice your puppy is only pottying every other time you take them out then you can adjust to potty trips every 30 minutes.  As your puppy ages you can add about 30 minutes to an hour between potty breaks per month of age.

At night and when napping a puppy will need to go potty less.  Setting an alarm to take your puppy out once or twice during the night should be enough to avoid accidents.  You do not need to wake up a napping puppy to take them outside but as soon as they are awake you will need to take them outside immediately.  You may need to carry your puppy outside if they have just awoken so that they do not have an accident on the way.

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