Airborne K9's Potty Training Guide

Getting a new puppy can be exciting, and we all just want to have our puppy be the centerpiece of our family time as we gather in the living room to welcome our new family member!

We all know that potty accidents are bound to happen when you have a very young puppy, and if you aren't careful, those accidents could continue well into adulthood if they are not managed at an early age.

The Airborne K9 Potty training guide is intended to help guide you through the potty training process for you new pup so that you can enjoy all of the best parts of puppy-hood without worrying about cleaning up potty messes.

What you'll need:

An appropriately sized kennel

The size of the kennel during potty training is a crucial aspect of the learning process for your puppy. Puppies naturally do not want to stand, step, sit, or lay in their own mess if they have a potty accident. If the kennel is too big, it may allow for your puppy to potty in one area of the kennel and then move to the other area of the kennel to get away from it.

If your puppy feels that if they have an accident in the kennel that they won't be able to avoid it, it will help encourage them to hold it a bit longer until you are able to take your puppy out for a potty break.

A Leash

Did you know that sometimes when our puppies are having fun, exploring, or otherwise easily distracted, they may forget that they need to go potty? Well, its true! The leash is going to help limit our dog's activities until after they go potty.

We recommend a good slip leash, becaues it will grow with your dog, is very easy to put on and take off, and your puppy won't be able to slip out of it.

Some treats or kibble

Treats or kibble will be important when its time to reward your puppy for going potty outside. If your puppy really enjoys their normal kibble, its a good idea to use that instead of treats. Some puppies may not be overly interested in their kibble when they are in distracting environments, so then you could use some treats instead.

Getting Started

We know you want to just cuddle your puppy and play with them with the family, but in the beginning, it will be most beneficial to allow your puppy to spend some time getting use to their kennel.

We will start the potty training routine with our puppy in their kennel. When we want to take our puppy out of the kennel, we want to put the leash on and take our puppy directly outside.

It helps to keep your kennel close to the door where you'll be taking them outside so that you don't need to travel through the house very far to get to the potty area.

If you're puppy can't make it outside and has an accident on the way, you may want to carry your puppy outside until they get a better understanding of the routine.

Once you're outside...

Your puppy will probably be pretty excited to be out of the kennel and outside where all of the sights and smells are new and interesting.

However, it is important to keep your puppy on the leash with you, and you want to stay in one small area to limit what your puppy can explore until after they go potty.

Your puppy may have too much fun exploring the whole yard and forget to go potty, so if we limit our puppy's exploration area to the limits of the leash, then they will likely get bored exploring within a few minutes and remember they they likely need to go to potty.

Spend about 4-5 minutes standing like a post with your puppy, or until your puppy goes potty. If your puppy doesn't go potty in the first 5 minutes, you should put your puppy back into their kennel for another 20-30 minutes and try again.

SUCCESS! What to do after your puppy goes potty outside...

Once your puppy goes potty (either #1 or #2), you want to let your puppy know that they've done a good job with some kibble or treats, as well as some petting and praise. If you have a toy you could even play with a toy for a couple minutes as a reward for a successful potty!

Only spend 1-2 minutes celebrating with your puppy, and then you allow your puppy to calmly walk around the outdoor area for anywhere from 5 - 10 minutes.

This will allow your puppy to go potty again if they need to, or if they need to do #2, this is going to be their opportunity to d that as well.

When you are confident your puppy doesn't need to go potty any more, you should bring your puppy inside and they should go back into the kennel for about an hour.

Repeat the process...

You will want to repeat this process every 1-2 hours for the first couple days. You can likely go a bit longer over night between potty breaks, but you should consider how old your puppy is, and realize that most young puppies until 20 weeks probably can't hold their bladder longer than 4 hours at most. So you may need to get up once or twice through the night.

How ro progress...

If your puppy is successfully going potty outside everytime or almost everytime you go outside for at least 1-2 days, you can start to add more time between your potty breaks. If you have been doing hourly potty breaks, maybe you can begin going out ever 1.5 hours, or every 2 hours.

If you find that your puppy is starting to have accidents, you may want to shorten the time between potty breaks to allow your puppy the greatest chances of success.

Start Developing a Routine

We all want out puppy to be part of the family, so you can start to allow you puppy to hang out in the house and with the family for short periods after their successful potty breaks.

It will be important to keep track of the time between your potty breaks and try not to add too much time between each potty opportunity for your puppy.

In Case of an Accident...

If your puppy has an accident, try to stay calm and quickly clean up the mess.

If the mess in in the House, you should immediately put your puppy back into the kennel and then clean the mess.

If your puppy has an accident in the kennel, this is where things get a little tricky...

In some cases, if we take the puppy out of the kennel to clean it, our puppy may think any time they want to get out of the kennel all they need to do is make a mess in the kennel, and mom or dad will let them out.

Some options to prevent our puppy from getting this idea, would be to have a second crate on hand and place your puppy into the second crate while you clean the dirty crate.

If you want to make the training a bit more meaningful for your puppy, you can use a smaller crate as the second crate, so that while your are cleaning, the puppy may be a bit uncomfortable in a somewhat cramp small crate.

The other option, if you don't have a second crate, is to keep your puppy on leash with you while you are cleaning. This can be a bit challenging to manage a puppy at the end of your leash while also trying to clean up a mess.

A third option would be to clean the crate with your puppy in it. Think of it like your mom trying to vacuum in front of you while you are trying to watch TV... its pretty annoying right? Well, that's the idea!

You want to be careful not to use any dangerous chemicals to clean your crate especially if you are doing it while your puppy is still inside. You can start with some papertowels and water to get the majority of the mess out while your puppy is in there, and if you need to use some more powerful solutions, then you can take the puppy out and finish cleaning the crate.

Dog Training and Behavior Center

(919) 205 - 8255

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