How To House Train An Adult Dog – Is It Too Late?
If your dog, who has been adequately housetrained as a puppy, starts exhibiting undesirable behavior in his advanced years, you might need to start considering re-housetraining your adult dog. Occasional accidents and bad dog behavior in adult dogs is not really a serious cause for concern. All you have to do is try to figure out what triggers these behaviors and communicate with your dog in order to solve the problem.
Many adult dogs who regress into undesirable behavior usually do so because of the lack of attention from the owner. If the dog is left to his own resources and given complete freedom for a very long time, it is very likely that he will forget all the training that he has undergone as a puppy. For example, if he starts urinating on the living room carpet and no one is punishing him for it, then he might think that it is now an acceptable thing to do.
With prolonged lack of monitoring, the dog will simply do whatever he wants. When you finally notice that this is happening, the only option you will have is re-housetraining your adult dog.
House Training An Older Dog
The process of re-housetraining your adult dog is not that different to training a puppy for the first time. It does require a lot more monitoring and a lot more patience, especially if the dog has been allowed complete freedom for quite some time. The plus side, however, is that a mature dog already understands the value of praise and correction. Therefore, he will be more likely to obey your commands and will be able to relearn everything at a relatively fast pace.
Scolding the dog for forgetting his puppy lessons will not do any good. It is, after all, your fault as the owner that you let the undesirable behavior go on for as long as it had. Instead, you just have to supervise the dog closely to make sure that no further accidents occur and that the dog always behaves exactly as you want him to. Just make sure that you still give your dog enough space and freedom so that he doesn’t feel too watched.
Close monitoring is essential to the process of housetraining an adult dog, especially if the dog is sneaky and tries to escape your watching eye as much as he can. Since you can’t be following your dog around all day, it would be wise to ask the help of other family members in this task.
Practical Potty Training for Puppies – A Dog Crate Makes Housetraining Easier
Dogs are born with the instinct to keep their sleeping areas clean and relieve themselves in another area. When a puppy is too small to move to a different area, the mother stimulates the puppy to relieve itself and she cleans up after him. Now that your puppy is getting bigger, though, his “mommy” isn’t there to clean up his messes anymore and you, as his adoptive parent, don’t want to have to clean up after him forever. It might be time to start training your puppy.
If you use a crate to train the puppy, it uses the puppies natural instinct to keep its bed clean and by doing this the dog develops stronger bowel and bladder control because the puppy will make a harder effort to hold it when he is relaxed in his cozy bed.
There are several types of dog crates available. The soft-sided fabric carriers are strictly for traveling. The plastic of wire crates can be used for housetraining and traveling. Plastic cages or crates are often made with two parts, a top and a bottom that fastens together with bolts and of course a wire door. Wire crates are more like cages and they are open all around.
The kind of crate you think would be right for your dog is a personal preference. The plastic crates provide more security for the puppy; although open wire crates allow more air flow. The wire crates will often fold up for storage reasons, although they are heavy they are compact and bundle. The plastic crates are bulky but light weight. After you compare the crates, choose the crate that you think will fit your life style and make your puppy happiest.
When choosing a crate make sure it is big enough for your puppy but not big enough for an adult sized dog. Your puppy should have enough room to lie down, get comfortable and move around but no more room than that. If you get a crate that is too big your puppy will be able to relieve themselves in a corner and still be bale to get away from it.
You have to remember that the reason you get a crate to potty train your dog is to use your dog’s instinct to keep its bed clean. If you already have a crate but it is for an adult dog, put a piece of cardboard or a plank of wood to section off the crate so your puppy only has access to a certain part of the crate.
Making your dog familiar with its crate is not hard. Prop open the door so that it does not swing closed on accident, and toss a toy or treat in the crate. Coax your dog to get the toy or treat by using a personal command, which you will want to continue using while you are training your puppy.
You may want to say “Go to bed baby!” After the dog enters the crate praise him. Do this many times throughout the day. When it is time for your puppy to eat place the food bowl in the crate so that it has to enter to crate to eat. After a few days of your puppy eating in its crate, begin to close the door behind it as it enters the crate to eat and after open the doors for it to come out.
After your dog is comfortable with being in its crate begin placing the puppy in the crate at night. You will want to place the crate in your room so that your puppy can see you, hear you, smell you, and be close to you. When your puppy is close to you, you will be able to hear it should it become antsy and restless needing to go outside.
