We are only teaching a very small set of skills we will be using in the house training plan. We will be using positive reinforcement, a clicker, and treats to both teach and practice these behaviors so our puppy can learn them efficiently and effectively. So grab your clicker and set up your success station with treats!

These skills will be taught as small steps and then combined. When teaching we will reward each step, later on we can reward at the very end (after the puppy goes potty). 1. Teaching puppies to move quickly to the back door (potty door) when we move towards the door and when they need to potty.2. Teaching Puppy to stay with us while we attach a leash.3. Teach puppy to ring a potty bell.4. Teach puppy to go quickly outside when we open the potty door and move directly to the potty area outside.5. Teach puppy to relieve themselves in the potty zone.Most of these behaviors will be reinforced as part of a long stream of behaviors called a Behavior Chain.

Each step in a behavior chain can be pulled out and taught on its own. When we do this learning is faster and retained better than if we lump everything together. We run with the puppy to the door, feed puppy a treat when it gets to the door (this teaches the puppy to go directly to the door when we do) that treat helps puppy be still so we can attach a leash, then toss a treat out the back door when open, puppy runs to the potty area to find the treat and is reinforced by that treat for going to it’s potty area, the sniffing for the treat also triggers the puppy to pee. Once our puppy goes potty we can feed the final treat for that. We can then CLICK as the puppy finishes relieving itself, feed it a treat, remove the leash and play with it. Remember “Potty then play”The entire process takes just about 3 minutes and look at all the behaviors we are teaching our puppy to do!

Tip: Don’t be in a hurry to rush your puppy back inside, puppies get bored too, and they need time to explore and play outside. Reward your puppy for going potty outside with at least a few minutes of “noodling” around. Letting puppies explore and sniff outside is vital to their development. If there isn’t any time for outdoor activity be sure to provide your puppy with something to do indoors. Note! If you can't leash your puppy for potty breaks, a good substitute is to erect a temporary fence around the toilet zone outside, you can use an X pen (small dog) or inexpensive galvanized wire and T Posts for a slightly larger area and omit the leashing up parts of the protocol and instead run with the puppy right to the toilet zone for each potty break. By leash or pen, restricting the puppy to the potty zone can help the puppy learn to potty first thing, and prevent puppy from getting distracted by playing and forgetting to potty until they are inside again.

Positive Reinforcement: Skill/Behavior List