How do I Paper Train a Dog?
When one acquires a young puppy, the best method for promoting good bathroom habits is to paper train the dog. Most puppies will not be considered reliable in this area until they are about six months old. They are rather like young children, and should never be blamed or scolded for the inevitable puppy mistakes that will occur all over your house.
To reduce accidents, one can reasonably count on the puppy needing to “go” about every half hour to 45 minutes. They will especially need to go after play, after eating, and after sleeping. Thus the first step to paper train your puppy is to establish an area in the home, perhaps without carpeting, where the puppy can go without causing a mess.
Once you have established a puppy safe, paper training area, perhaps a laundry room, be sure access to the room is blocked off. This can easily be accomplished with a baby gate, which is preferable to shutting the door, because one has full visual access to the puppy. Line the entire area with several layers of thick paper. Newspaper is best, but remember not to recycle soiled newspaper.
For more ease in the paper train process, any puppy toys, food and water, and a puppy bed should be kept in the papered area. When at home with the puppy, if you are playing with him or her in other areas of the house, be sure to return him to the paper train area about every half hour. Don’t punish mistakes, but instead lavishly reward the puppy with attention whenever he is able to urinate or have a bowel movement on the paper.
To avoid accidents when you cannot keep close watch, always put the puppy in the paper train area before bedtime or if you have to leave the home. Don’t be surprised in the early stages if the puppy chews, rips or moves the paper. It is in the nature of puppies to explore. You might consider co-training the puppy, by only allowing chewing in the paper train room, as this will help reduce the urge of the mature dog to destroy your furniture.
With close attention, the puppy will soon begin to associate elimination on the paper with positive reward. When the puppy consistently is able to go on the paper, and generally chooses a specific location for his or her bathroom activities, it is time to move forward with the paper train process. Choose the area farthest from the puppy’s favorite elimination spot and remove about an inch (2.54 cm) of the paper. The goal is about an inch a week.
If the puppy uses the unpapered area, you have worked the paper train process too quickly, and should repaper. However, if the puppy understands and does not eliminate in the unpapered area, you can continue reducing the paper inch by inch as the weeks continue. Rewards should be given each time the puppy is successful to continue to associate paper with elimination.
As the puppy matures, stagger positive reinforcement. The puppy needs to learn elimination should not only occur when one expects a result. If the puppy begins to err, add more praise, but as the puppy consistently eliminates on the remaining paper, praise can be reduced.
Once the paper is gone, you may want to paper a small section of yard to reinforce that outside is really the best place for elimination. You may wish to introduce paper earlier on walks so the puppy does not always consider your house as the best bathroom site. Again the puppy should be well praised during the outside paper train process.
By about six months, your puppy will have completed the paper training and be fairly reliable and less prone to accidents. The more active your role in the paper train process, the quicker your puppy will learn, and the less your home will suffer. One proviso, however, is to not leave your newspapers on the floor after you have completed paper training. These are too much of an invitation to a paper trained dog.
Written by Tricia Ellis-Christensen
