Potty Training for an Apartment

Potty training a puppy is both one of the most important things to focus on and the hardest and longest to learn. Making progress on potty training helps establish good habits and makes all other aspects of puppy training easier. Especially for brand-new pet owners, potty training equals less cleaning, more sleep, less anxiety, and a quicker return to normal life.

Potty Training is Most Important

Together with Legal Chew Toys, potty training should be your top priority starting out. Here are several reasons why potty training is important for a puppy:

Cleanliness: Accidents in the house can lead to unsanitary living conditions if they aren’t cleaned up immediately, which can be harmful to both you and your puppy. Potty training helps prevent accidents and keeps your home clean and hygienic.
Convenience: Potty training allows your puppy to eliminate in designated areas rather than anywhere in the house. This means less cleaning for you, and it can also be more pleasant for your puppy as they will have a designated spot to relieve themselves and feel they are making progress in learning the rules of the home.
Obedience: Potty training is an important part of obedience training for your puppy. It helps them understand and follow rules, which is essential for their overall behavior and obedience.
Socialization: Potty training helps your puppy experience more as you become more comfortable with them in different environments. A puppy that has frequent accidents will have limited socialization, which can impact their overall well-being.
Survival: While unthinkable, your puppy’s life can depend on being housebroken. Not being housebroken is a leading reason dogs are given up for adoption or to shelters. Succeeding in potty training will ensure that your puppy never faces that because of soiling in the home.

Overall, potty training is essential for the health, convenience, obedience, and socialization of your puppy. It takes time, patience, and consistency, but the benefits are well worth the effort.

Potty Training Keys to Success

One key to successful potty training is to establish a regular routine for your puppy. This should include designated times for outdoor potty breaks as well as indoor opportunities for your puppy to relieve themselves on designated training pads or in a specific spot in the house (if you choose to have indoor space for relieving). Consistency is key to helping your puppy understand what is expected of them, which means you need a plan.

Another important aspect of potty training is to reward your puppy for good behavior. This can be in the form of praise, treats, or playtime. Positive reinforcement will help your puppy understand what they are doing right and encourage them to continue exhibiting this behavior. It is hard to imagine what should get better praise than the first time a puppy potties in the correct location. Pour on the rewards and show how proud you are.

It is also crucial to supervise your puppy at all times, especially during the early stages of training. This will allow you to catch them in the act of eliminating indoors and interrupt the behavior, redirecting them to the designated indoor potty area or running them outside. Supervision goes hand and hand with confinement. Using a puppy apartment will make it easier to supervise and limit surprise of finding an accident hours later.

Accidents are a natural part of the potty training process, and it is important not to punish your puppy for them. This can cause confusion and may set back the training process. You can and should interrupt them if you catch them in the act, but if you don’t, even just a few moments late, punishing won’t be productive. Your main responsibility with accidents is cleaning. Clean up accidents thoroughly to remove any lingering odors that may attract your puppy back to the same spot, an enzymatic cleaner can help.

In addition to a regular routine and positive reinforcement, patience is an essential component of potty training a puppy. It can take several months for your puppy to be fully trained, and every puppy is different. This can also be a time that you own routine is upended including your sleep so remembering to stay consistent and patient during this process is key.

A Puppy Apartment is Key to Successful Potty Training

All aspects of potty training can be supported by setting up a Puppy Apartment.

Supervision of your puppy is easier because there is a limited space
Confinement (and a camera) ensures there are no surprise accidents to be found hours later
Having all cleaning supplies nearby supports a calm and quick response during accidents
Confinement after an accident is automatic. Your puppy won’t parade wet paws around the house.
Set up to be easy to clean and sanitize
If you choose, it will be the location for an indoor potty place.

Our puppy apartment consisted of a crate and a pen. On the top of the pen, we stored everything we could need in a crisis.

A few things to notice about the photo:

Puppy apartment is easy to clean and fully able to be sanitized or washed
Puppy training pads (the blue sheets) could be reached from outside the pen and thrown on top of an accident. This stopped anyone from walking on it and stopped the spread of paw prints.
Cleaning supplies included hardwood floor cleaner, enzymatic cleaner, and an apple cider spray to discourage interest in the accident spot. Trash bags and paper towels as well.

Because of the puppy apartment, we never had an accident on a rug or piece of furniture.

Should You Teach Your Puppy to Pee Inside?

It is generally recommended to teach a new puppy to eliminate outside. This is because it is important to establish good habits from the start and teaching a puppy to eliminate outdoors is more in line with their natural instincts. If you teach indoor elimination, at some point in the future you will need to unteach it.

However, it can be helpful to introduce training pads or a designated indoor spot for your puppy to eliminate during the early stages of training when the puppy needs to pee every few hours (their bladders are small). Training pads can also be a useful tool for helping your puppy learn to eliminate on a specific surface and in a specific location. They can also be useful during times when it is not practical or safe to take your puppy outside, such as during inclement weather or at night. Especially for very small dogs, it is common to continue indoor potty past puppyhood.

Ultimately, the decision of whether to teach your puppy to eliminate indoors or outdoors will depend on your individual circumstances and the needs of your puppy. It is important to consider the age, breed, and size of your puppy, as well as your living situation.

For us, we bought training pads with the intention of teaching Tuna to pee indoors to help us through the first few months of potty training (especially during winter nights). But because Tuna spent his first 8 weeks at a horse farm with his mother and litter, he was already comfortable eliminating outside and naturally wanted to go outdoors. So faced with the choice of either supporting his training so far to only going outdoors and explicitly teaching him to pee indoors, knowing that we would have to unteach that later. We decided quickly to only train eliminating outdoors.

Puppy Potty Very Frequently

The frequency of potty breaks for a puppy will depend on several factors, including their age, size, breed, and individual needs.

Very early on, a good rule of thumb is to take your puppy outside to eliminate every two hours, as well as after naps, meals, and before and after playtime. It is also important to take your puppy outside first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and anytime they have been left alone for an extended period of time.

If that sounds overwhelming, it is. But the alternative is to clean up accidents and extend the time until you become accident-free.

To ease the load, it is best to pair activities together into a routine. For example, the puppy wakes up, take outside for a pee and poo break, comes back in for a meal, playtime, back outside for quick pee, then nap. Then start all over again. It gets much easier as their bladder gets bigger, as they learn to communicate with you, and as you learn to read their behavior.

During the early stages of potty training, it is important to be consistent and take your puppy outside frequently to help them understand what is expected of them. As they get older and become more reliable, you can gradually increase the time between potty breaks.

It is also important to pay attention to your puppy’s body language and behavior, as they may give subtle signals that they need to go outside to eliminate. These signals may include pacing, circling, or whining. Learning what those signals are and recognizing them will promote your puppy’s communication of those signals even more.

It is important to remember that every puppy is different and the frequency of potty breaks will depend on the individual needs of your puppy. It may be helpful to consult with a veterinarian or a professional dog trainer for guidance on the best approach for your specific puppy, especially if there are medical issues.

What are ten things new dog owners struggle with about potty training?

Lack of consistency: New dog owners may struggle with establishing a regular routine for potty training, which is crucial for a puppy’s success.
Lack of supervision: It is important to supervise your puppy at all times, especially during the early stages of training. Some new dog owners may struggle with finding the time or energy to constantly watch their puppy.
Inconsistent rewards: Rewarding good behavior is an important aspect of potty training, but some new dog owners may struggle with remembering to reward their puppy consistently.
Punishing accidents: It is important not to punish your puppy for accidents, as this can cause confusion and may set back the training process. Some new dog owners may struggle with controlling their frustration and not punishing their puppy for accidents.
Lack of patience: Potty training a puppy takes time and patience, and some new dog owners may struggle with the length of the process.
Lack of understanding: Some new dog owners may struggle with understanding their puppy’s behavior and identifying the signs that they need to go outside to eliminate.
Inability to predict accidents: Some new dog owners may struggle with predicting when their puppy needs to go outside, resulting in accidents in the house.
Too much freedom: Some new dog owners may give their puppy too much freedom too soon, leading to accidents in the house.
Lack of designated potty area: Establishing a designated potty area is an important aspect of potty training, and some new dog owners may struggle with deciding on an appropriate spot.
Medical issues: In some cases, accidents in the house may be caused by underlying medical issues. Some new dog owners may struggle with identifying and addressing these issues.

Resources We Used While Potty Training

Simpawtico Dog Training
Puppy potty training app

Things To Help Potty Training

Potty pads
Paper towels
Towels and sheets (instead of bedding)
High-value treats
Apple cider spray
Cleaner
Enzymatic cleaner
Puppy Pen
Dog Crate
Poop bags
Poop bag holder