The times your puppy needs to go out
A young puppy can’t hold on for long, and its body runs on a few very predictable triggers. Take it out:
- the moment it wakes up, including after every nap
- within a few minutes of eating or drinking
- after play or excitement (visitors, a game, the children coming home)
- last thing at night and first thing in the morning
- and at least every one to two hours in between, more often for very young or small puppies
Signs it’s about to go: sniffing the floor, circling, suddenly wandering off. Don’t wait, scoop it up and out you go.
Same spot, same word
Take your puppy to the same patch of garden each time, on a lead if needed so it doesn’t wander off to play. Stand still and boring. As it starts to go, say a cue word quietly (“be quick”, “busy”), and in a few weeks the word alone will prompt it.
Reward straight away
Praise and give a tasty treat the second it finishes, outside, not when you’re back in the kitchen. A puppy learns from what happens in the next couple of seconds. Then a little play: it should never learn that going quickly means the fun stops.
Accidents: what not to do
Never tell off, shout or “rub its nose in it”. The puppy doesn’t connect the scolding with the puddle, it learns that toileting in front of you is risky, so it starts hiding behind the sofa. Interrupt calmly if you catch it in the act, take it outside, and clean up without a word.
Use an enzyme cleaner, not bleach or ammonia-based products, which smell like urine to a dog and invite it back to the same spot.
Nights
Keep your puppy close at first, in a crate or a pen by your bed. When it wakes and fusses in the night, take it out quietly, no games, no chat, straight back to bed. Most puppies drop the night-time trip within a few weeks.
Puppy pads and flats
Pads teach a puppy that going indoors is fine, so you end up toilet training twice. If you live in a flat without a garden, use them as a short-term backup only, and get outside as often as you possibly can.
When it isn’t a training problem
See your vet if a puppy that was clean starts having accidents again, if it wees very often in small amounts, strains, drinks a lot more than usual or has blood in its urine. Urinary infections are common in puppies and easy to treat.
For an adult rescue dog, start from scratch as if it were a puppy: new home, new rules, and it may never have lived indoors before.
Toilet training: what owners ask
How long does it take to toilet train a puppy?
Typically a few weeks to a few months. Most are reliable by four to six months, small breeds sometimes later.
Should I use a crate?
A crate the right size, introduced kindly, helps because dogs avoid soiling where they sleep. It’s never a place for punishment or for long hours.
My puppy wees as soon as we come back inside. Why?
It was too busy exploring outside. Stay out a little longer, keep things boring, and only play once it has been.
