Adult Dog Indoor Potty Training

Potty training your adult dog is very similar to potty training a puppy except your adult dog has probably been making mistakes in the house much longer and will need extra time to adjust to the new rules. However, this does not mean leniency. In fact, you will probably have to be even stricter on your adult dog because it already knows how to break the rules.

  1. Considerations

    • It's important to determine when and where accidents are happening when beginning your attempt to re-potty train your adult dog. If your usually house-trained dog begins having accidents suddenly, visit your veterinarian to rule out a medical cause such as a urinary tract infection. If your dog has accidents only rarely, associated with something scary like a thunderstorm, you'll have to fix the anxiety before fixing the potty training. The same is true with separation anxiety. However, if your dog has always had accidents, whether you are home or not, your dog is simply not house-trained yet and needs to learn.

    Cleaning

    • If your adult dog has frequent indoor accidents, they are probably in only a few specific places because dogs are creatures of habit. It's important to clean those accidents thoroughly as dogs have a much better sense of smell than we do. This means soaking the accident repeatedly in high-strength pet cleaner. Professional steam cleaning may also be required.

    Keep a Journal

    • A proper potty training protocol requires that you prevent all accidents from occurring in the future. This means anticipating when your dog needs to go and leading him to the proper spot. To do this, feed your dog at the same time every day and record when it does which business. If your dog can hold it three or four hours, lead it to the spot you want it to go a little before three hours. If it does the business you know it needs to do, your dog can have house freedom. If not, it must be confined in a small area or crate until its next bathroom break.

    Indoor Potty Training

    • Teaching your dog to relieve itself in the appropriate indoor location requires potty pads or a litter box of some kind. Lead your dog to this box on leash (don't carry) when it's time to go. If your dog relieves himself, praise and reward. Because dogs often go more than once each bathroom break, clean up after your dog and bring it back to the spot again to make sure it's finished. If your dog doesn't go, confine it to a small area with a bed and potty pad. Because your dog won't go in its bed, it will go to the potty pad.

    Confinement

    • Because your adult dog has plenty of practice relieving itself indoors, it can't have house freedom until the potty training is completed. This means that your dog is never unsupervised in the house. Keep your dog tethered to you with a leash, tethered in the room you are in or confined to its area at all times. Make sure it always has access to a potty pad. Once your dog seems to be potty trained, slowly give back the freedom. If an accident occurs, go back to confinement for a few more weeks.