Possibly the most common mistake in potty training

I always emphasize how important it is to develop a schedule for your puppy. Eating at regular intervals, sleeping at approximately the same time every day...sticking to a schedule until your puppy acclimates to his new home and matures enough to control his body processes makes all other training all that much easier. But it is extremely hard, if not impossible, for young pups to keep urinating and defecating on a schedule.

You will be best served if you accept the fact from the start that peeing and pooping for young puppies is never on a regular schedule. You can take your puppy outside, see him pee, take him inside and have an accident within two minutes. Getting mad does nothing except cause both of you stress. Understanding that your puppy can't 'hold it' very well and changing YOUR behavior to compensate will make all the difference.

Some points to note:

• If you have recently lost an older dog, or have older dogs in the household, remember you can't expect your puppy to have the same control of their bladder of bowel movements as older dogs do. An older dog can go eight hours without eliminating...as impossible for a puppy to accomplish as it is for a newborn infant.
• The puppy doesn't have any 'intent' when it has an accident after they just came into the house. They aren't punishing you for not paying attention to them. They simply forgot to completely empty their bladder or go poop when they last went out.
• The age when a puppy starts being able to "hold it" longer varies greatly between individuals. However, if you don't start seeing improvement over time after they are 10 to 12 weeks, you may need to be more proactive. Crate training during the day can be very helpful in helping your puppy to be better at delaying elimination.
• Having a puppy is not a passive activity. Look for signs that the puppy needs to go potty. Sniffing vigorously. Wandering around in tight circles or hurriedly with nose down. Slight puffing out of their anal opening...these are all signs that the puppy has to either pee or poop.
• Whenever the puppy wakes up...in the morning or from a nap, take them out immediately to see if they need to pee or poop.
• After they are fed, take them out to pee or poop.

I don't know how many times people have complained to me about how bad their puppy is at potty training,  then I find out that there are six hours or more between times they take the puppy out. Even if the puppy is in a crate and doesn't want to dirty it, a puppy can't wait that long. So the result is that you 'teach' the puppy to urinate in his crate (creating all kinds of other problems) and create unnecessary stress for you and your puppy. 

So what should you do? When I decide to get a puppy, I prepare myself for taking him out at least once an hour and whenever I see any behavior that may indicate he has to go again. Even it we just went out a minute ago. When I see that he doesn't need to go out that often, I stretch that out to every two hours, and so forth, gradually lengthening the time between when they have to go out. All the while, I always look for the other indicators that he has to make an unscheduled visit outside, (and don't forget after they wake up and after they eat trips outside).

At night, I always put the puppy in a crate and turn out the lights. This signals that it is time to sleep and not to be active or to pee. For young puppies (8 to 10 weeks), I set my alarm for six hours or less and take them outside. For older puppies, if they seem to be able to handle it, I set the alarm for 8 hours. Any time they whine, I take them out. If they don't go, I put them back in the crate.

Realize in advance that this schedule will create a fair share of 'false alarms' where the puppy neither has to pee nor poop. In any case, if they don't do either, don't allow them to play...they need to know these are not playtime visits. Remind yourself that these 'false alarms' are all part of the training that will establish a good poop / pee reflex in your puppy and to teach them where and when it is right to go potty.

If this is all too labor intensive for you, or you have a job and can't be around every two hours, here is an option. During the day, put the puppy in an easily cleanable, safe, enclosed area. A pen in the garage or in your bathroom with the door closed will work.  MAKE SURE THAT THE PUPPY CAN'T REACH ANY THING HARMFUL! Puppies, like toddlers, can open cabinets and reach cleaning supplies. Puppies also may be able to break out of a pen if you forget to close a latch completely, so make sure you have locked all dangerous items away. I would also move anything breakable or 'shredable' away as well.

In this safe, combined area, make sure you clearly delineate an area where it is ok to pee and an area that should be the clean, comfortable 'den.that the puppy should keep clean. I like to put a dog igloo in my puppy pen and put a comfortable dog bed in the igloo, and a water dish and plenty of newspaper outside the igloo on one side of the pen. If you need to put your pup in the bathroom, I suggest a puppy bed in a cardboard box (on its side like a little cave), again with water and newspapers away from the bed.  You might want to use puppy pads instead of newspaper, however my experience has been that puppies (except for the very young) tend to shred those much more often then they do normal newspapers, so word to the wise.

In either case, make sure plenty of age and individually appropriate toys are available. When you come home, take the puppy outside immediately and let them pee and/or poop. Then clean and disinfect the area where they eliminated inside (hopefully on the newspaper).  

If you avoid making the common mistake of having your pup wait too long to go...things should go much smoother on your journey to complete potty training.