How to kindly and effectively train your dog or puppy

There may have been some people out there who claim that they can properly potty train a puppy that is younger than 16 weeks old. There is a slight problem with this statement.

Puppies who are under than 16 weeks old are not able to hold their bladder, which means that any potty training that takes place will not yet be effective. It is not until the puppy is four months old that it will be able to hold it’s bladder long enough to make it over to a newspaper or to the back yard.


With that said, this does not mean that you cannot start to show the puppy where his bathroom is prior to his 16th week birthday. Of course, you cannot seriously expect the puppy to be able to make it to the designated area all that often. There are some puppies out there that can surprise you and actually train ahead of time, but this is usually only a week or so early. Then again, you just never know, there is always a first time for everything, although I would not count on it.

If you want to designate an area to be the bathroom for your puppy than you may do so. If you want to have your puppy urinate and defecate outside, make sure that you are taking the puppy out there very often. When you notice that the puppy goes to the bathroom in your desired location, make sure that you give praise. He will start to understand that going to the bathroom where you want him to is a good thing. Your puppy will start to catch on that this is the desired behavior but he most likely will not be able to control his bodily functions enough to make it happen.

This means that you should never, under any circumstances, scold a puppy that is under 16 weeks old for going to the bathroom in an undesirable location. He simply has absolutely no control over it so it cannot be considered his fault. This is often why such young puppies are kept in kitchens where the floor is tiled and will not be damaged. Another reason why you do not want to scold a puppy that young is because you can traumatize it and that is the last thing you want to happen.

Those that try to do some potty training at an early age may indeed have given the puppy a head start, but it is certainly not going to be all that big of one. Just make sure that you are putting too much pressure on the puppy. After all, he just probably got done learning how to walk and he is trying to figure out why you are so tall. Let him be a puppy for a few months and then you can begin some more intensive potty training when he gets to be a little older.

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