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All right, welcome to Pack Talk Podcast, episode 140. Today, we’re talking about potty training, whether you have a puppy, whether you have an adult dog, and what I’ve seen with a lot of people that we work with is they’re watching TikTok videos. They’re watching these TikTok videos of dogs that seem to instinctively know where to go potty, and they’re wondering why their dog treats their living room like a personal bathroom.
They feel like they’re struggling with their potty training. They feel like their puppy or their dog can’t be potty trained. And I know that there’s a lot of people out there that feel like that.
And that’s what they believe that their dog, their puppy is the one that’s struggling out of all the dogs they’re watching on TikTok or Instagram or whatever videos they’re watching. And so at Canine Revolution Dog Training, what we’ve done is we found a formula that basically flips this problem on its head. And today, me and Danny, we’re going to reveal this formula to you guys to help you master your puppy, your dog’s potty training.
It should be done in a week or less, generally. Now, with being said, you know, every dog’s a little bit different. So we’re going to go through the formula with you, give that potty training formula to you.
And it doesn’t matter if you have a puppy that you just got from a breeder. It doesn’t matter if you got a puppy you just got from a rescue. It doesn’t matter if you have an adult dog that you rescued or an adult dog that you feel you’ve been having potty issues for years with them.
This formula will work. You just have to be very consistent with the potty training steps to make sure that you’re consistent enough to enable your dog to resolve the potty training issues, right? So yes, it does work on adult dogs.
That’s a big question we get a lot of the times. So there’s really just two main parts to this formula. One is going to be structure and the other one is going to be schedule.
So we’ll step through both of these parts in a little bit of detail for you guys today. But Danny, can you tell us a little bit about why this works?
Well, you know, just like all animals, dogs are habitual creatures, right? They build habits. So they’re going to build habits doing, or, you know, like we’ve said, they’re going to practice.
They’re going to do what they practice essentially, right? So having super consistent structure and having super, super consistent schedule is going to teach them to do, you know, build the habits of what you want them to do, right? If they’re building a habit of going in the kennel, going on the rug, going in the corner, on the curtains and stuff like that, you know, doing whatever they do, they’re going to keep doing it.
So you need to, you know, really break that, break that habit, break that cycle to again, like the, like I said, get them doing the habits that you want them to do, in this case, going to the bathroom outside, right? So consistency, super, super important routine, super, super important for sure.
And one thing a lot of people think might be helping them is potty pads. If they’re using like a potty pad in their house, they think that helps them. That’s actually hurting you because your dog is practicing going potty in the house still.
So still you want to follow the system that we’re going to give you today to get them going outside reliably. Now, if we’re breaking down structure first, the first thing that we want to talk about in structure is management. Management is a part of structure.
And the biggest part of management is going to be your kennel training. So you want to train your dog or your puppy to be comfortable in a kennel. That’s their personal place.
That’s their den. That’s their lair. But as we’re doing potty training, we need to use a divider in the kennel to make sure that our dog or our puppy has just enough space to where they can comfortably lie down and relax, but not excessive space to where they might want to go potty in their kennel.
So the kennels that we use, and we’ll put a link down in the description below, but the kennels that we use is the Midwest Life Stages kennel. You can get them on Amazon, delivered to your house, Amazon, good to go. But it comes with a divider.
So that kennel already comes with a divider, you don’t have to buy a separate one. Then what you do is you use a divider just to give your dog enough space in your kennel to where they can turn around and lie down comfortably. They should be able to stand up, turn around, lie down comfortably.
That’s basically the amount of space that you need to start off with. Some other things that we use the kennel for is for a resting place. If you go for a walk, we bring the dog back, we put them in the kennel.
Now they’re resting in the kennel. That way they’re building a comfortable den type mentality to their kennel, a resting area. You can also feed them their food in the kennel, which we do.
You can give them their water in the kennel. Now of course we have water available with us wherever we go, but with your meals, you’ll have water in there too. And you can give them toys or chew sticks or whatever to chew on in their kennel as well to relax.
So just some key points to the kennel. But when we talk about schedule, we’ll talk about how you’re going to use your kennel to your advantage. But just know that a part of management is going to be using a kennel.
And then what happens if your dog’s outside of the kennel? Well, then there’s two basic ways that we manage our dog. First, we could use an exercise pen.
Not everybody’s going to use this, but for some people, it does provide you the ability to have your dog outside of their kennel, kind of out in the house, but still manage where they’re able to get to. Then the other thing that we do is going to be keeping a leash on our dog, even in the house. That way we can supervise them.
And one of the things that I do with puppies in particular, or dogs that can’t be trusted not to potty in the house, is going to be keep that leash on me. So I’ll usually tie that leash off to my belt. That way I’m walking around, the puppy has to stay with me.
I can monitor them, see what they’re doing. They can’t just wander off to the curtains and then just pee on them real quick. So that’s beneficial to building up trust with your puppy.
And then also if you take your dog outside, you don’t just let it out in the yard because you need to make sure that they’re going potty in the yard. So you take them out with a leash, right?
Yeah, that’s definitely, I feel like that’s a mistake people are gonna make too, like to let the dog out for 10, 15 minutes.
Right.
And they come inside, like the dog didn’t go potty, comes inside, goes potty in the house.
Exactly.
That’s what it’s been doing.
Exactly.
And they’re like, what the hell, the dog was just outside. And they’re mad at the dog, right? Because they don’t understand that their management’s out of place.
Right, right, exactly.
Definitely.
Danny, yeah, talk about supervision under structure here.
So I mean, keeping the leash on, keeping it tied to you, like you said, is something that I know people have been doing that for a long time. I mean, I remember being super little, and we had a family dog, Sophie, rest in peace, by the way. But Sophie, my mother, I remember seeing my mother walk around with Sophie tied to her.
She’s like trying to make sure that she’s not going to the bathroom wherever she pleases in the house, right? So management, super, super important, right? You can’t manage or train something that you are not seeing happening, obviously, right?
So, and when you have the dog near you, obviously when it’s going around the house with you and everything like that, you’re observing it, you’re going to pick up on signs or cues that it might do before or signs that needs to go to the bathroom basically, right? So, I mean, if you’ve got a really young puppy and you’re really trying to build that habit, any indication that it might need to go to the bathroom, whether it’s whining, whether it’s pacing, whether it’s sniffing too much on the ground, things like that, and obviously there’s other signs, but anything like that, boom, we’re going outside, right? Just get them into the habit of going outside and make sure your management is in place too.
Exercise pen, definitely beneficial. I have a client right now that’s using that for their corgi puppy, right? So it’s just, again, a place of management, making sure that they aren’t free roaming the house.
They can’t find a spot on the carpet that smells good and they want to mark territory on there, or just be on there or whatever. So definitely management, super, super important, 100%.
But even if they’re in the exercise pen, you want to make sure you’re keeping an eye on them.
Some dogs might not be fit for that. Some dogs, you might need to, if you can’t directly supervise them, you can’t have them on the leash with you, just gotta go in the count, because that might be the most efficient way. I mean, yeah, there’s definitely some dogs I could see that that’s too much space for them, for sure.
We’ll talk about this here in a little bit later. But one of the things you never want to do is if your dog has gone to the bathroom, take their head and shove their head or their face into the potty.
That’s old school.
Right, that’s gonna not help your relationship and it can induce learned helplessness, right? So what we want to do is, we’ll talk more in detail about troubleshooting, right? Problems or what not to do.
But if you do find an accident after your puppy’s already had it, you can’t do anything to your dog or puppy. You just have to clean up the accident, carry on, and improve your supervision level.
Remember dogs are very much in the moment when they’re thinking, right? So if you leave the dog alone in the house for an hour or even 30 minutes, even 20 minutes, right? And you come back 20 minutes later, the dog’s already forgot that it went to the bathroom.
But mind that, the dog doesn’t know that going to the bathroom in the house is a bad habit or a bad thing for them to do. The puppy doesn’t understand that, right? He just needs to go to the bathroom, right?
Exactly, exactly.
So you can’t, you gotta be fair in that aspect. You can’t, like I said, as an old school tactic that people used to do to try to communicate to their dog, this is a negative thing, but it’s just not how dogs learn.
Exactly. And people probably didn’t know back in the day. Yeah, yeah, that’s true.
You know, they’re just doing natural human tendencies.
Exactly, exactly. They’re frustrated. They found a pile of shit in their car.
They don’t want to do that anymore.
Exactly, exactly.
So under structure, we’ve talked about management. We’ve talked about supervision. The last part of structure is going to be routines and rituals, which we’ve talked about a lot in the past.
But this is basically tapping into your dog’s natural instincts because we know that dogs are creatures of habit. We know they love routines. We know they thrive on ritual.
So do a lot of different animals, right? But one of our key rituals that we recommend is going to be to always take your puppy or your dog potty before and after major events during your day. So one could be you’re taking your dog out of the kennel, right?
Let’s say you’re taking them out. You want to hang out in the house with them. Before you just hang out in the house, you take them out to go potty.
Then you bring them in the house and you hang out with them in the house. Another one could be before you’re putting your puppy back in the kennel. Let’s say you’ve been chilling out in the house with them.
They’re going in their kennel. Before you put them in their kennel, take them out potty, then put them in their kennel. If you’re going for a car ride, take them potty before you get in the car.
Then whenever you get to your destination, let them have another opportunity to go potty. If you’re going for a walk, take them potty before you go on your walk and after your walk. The big key here is before and after every major event during your day, one of those is also feeding.
Make sure they have a chance to go potty before and after that event. Now, with feeding in particular, this happens a lot with younger puppies, but they eat, they have to go to the bathroom relatively quickly. Sometimes you need to make sure you get them out relatively quickly after they finish their food.
I would say like 20 minutes or so would be good for most people. Those are the big things on rituals and routines as far as potty training goes. Also, our feeding ritual, we do recommend while you’re potty training at least, feed your meals in the kennel.
That way, they are managed like we talked about earlier, then it also helps create that positive kennel association moving forward. Again, structure, you’ve got management, you’ve got supervision, you’ve got routines and rituals. We know that dogs thrive on rituals, they thrive on routines.
That’s why if you have ever seen the dog where you go grab their leash, they start getting excited because they know they’re going out or they know they’re going on a walk. That’s just that dog has picked up on that ritual over time, right, and made that association. So use that to your advantage when it comes to potty training as well.
And so then the other big part of potty training is going to be schedule, right? So we have different kind of recommendations for how to formulate your schedule. But Danny, talk to us real quick about just the foundational aspect of building a schedule for potty training.
Well, it’s got to be consistent. I’d say that’s the number one thing, staying as consistent as possible every day. You’re kind of doing the same schedule.
I know with me, my personal dog, every morning is the same. Every evening is the same. We wake up, we go potty, we eat, we go potty, we go for a walk, right?
It’s the same.
You know, you got to get your potty schedule.
Exactly. We got potty schedules, right?
Yeah.
We don’t need to get into that, but we, most people probably like, especially if you have a pretty consistent schedule with work and everything like that, we probably go to the bathroom at the same time. We probably got a schedule, right? So, and like I said before-
Well, I’m talking about Macy, you know Macy?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
You know Macy? She needs a potty schedule. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We already talked about that. But yeah, consistency definitely key. It’s definitely got to be the same across the board and with different family members too like if say, I go on vacation or something like that and my family’s not-
We know Danny loves vacation.
My family’s not maintaining that same schedule, that same structure, it’s going to fall apart, right? It’s got to be the same. And with that being said, it doesn’t have to be the same time every day.
My day’s off, I might sleep in a little late.
Really?
But yeah, maybe like 8.30 or so, right? So it’s like a little bit different time frame than when I’m waking up, when I’m coming here to go to work and all that. But the way we do things, the rituals of how we do things, the order of events is the same every single day, every single week, right?
So I think consistency is super, super important. Don’t rush the process, don’t have realistic expectations. These things aren’t going to happen in a day or something like that, right?
Yeah, one thing I see a lot of people doing is they rush, they like, they want to have more time between the potties.
Yeah.
So they extend their time between the potty breaks, and then the puppy starts having problems. Right, right, right. They don’t want to pull the time back.
They just, they are fighting at that. It’s like, dude, if you would just reduce your interval of time and not rush the process on your schedule.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, schedule is going to be, it’s going to be different across the board too with dogs, you know what I mean? Like some dogs are going to be more prone to going potty more consistently.
So in that aspect with those dogs, you’re going to have to take them out more consistently. It’s like maybe it’s every hour at first, maybe every hour and a half and maybe every two hours. But it’s got to go back to the habits and all that.
Like you got to build the habit of it, going to the bathroom outside and all that and have a very consistent schedule, especially in the beginning. If you can teach that in the beginning, then you’re good to go. You won’t really have to deal with tons of accidents.
But yeah, I mean, number one thing, as soon as you get a puppy, boom, plan out your schedule. Have your order of events lined up. I feel like that for sure.
One of the things about building your potty training schedule for your puppy or your adult dog is going to be how you plan out your intervals of time between your potty breaks. And so kind of the puppy rule of thumb is one hour, they could hold it for one hour for every month of age. And most people get their puppies from the breeder at like eight weeks.
So that’s about two months, right? Give or take. So if you get a puppy from a breeder, you’re talking about two months, that’s talking about maybe two hours of holding time.
Your puppy can hold their potty. Now with that being said, there’s individual factors. Some puppies can hold it way longer right out the gate.
Some puppies have to hold it less. So you’re going to have to figure out your individual dog as far as how they how long they can actually hold it for adjusting your potty interval times. So if I have a potty break, two hours go by and there’s another potty break, that’s your potty break interval time.
So the key is set up your puppy or your dog for success. Don’t set them up for failure. The way to set them up for success is to start off with short intervals of time between your potty breaks and then slowly increase the interval of time as your puppy proves their reliability with holding the potty.
Now if your puppy can’t even hold it for a short interval of time, you need to reduce that interval of time to make sure that they can be successful in going outside. So there have been cases that I’ve trained myself at least that are, they have been adult dogs, they’ve also been puppies, but they have such a strong habit of pottying in their kennel or pottying in the house that I’ve had to take them out every 20, 30 minutes, which is a lot of work throughout the day. But after a couple of days of doing that, then they get used to going outside, and as soon as you can begin that association, then you can start to increase the interval of time.
Absolutely.
So that can be a struggle. Let’s talk about a sample schedule for puppy potty training, right? So let’s say you got a puppy, it’s about two months old, give or take.
So you’re talking about two, maybe three hours at the most.
Fresh.
Right. Just got it. And so even overnight, you’re going to need to be able to take that puppy out to go to the bathroom.
So let’s just start off in the morning. Let’s say 7 a.m. you get up, you’re not like Danny, you don’t sleep till 8:30 a.m. That’s my days off. Days off.
Maybe eight.
Let’s say you get up at 7, you go to the bathroom yourself, then you’re going to take your puppy out to go potty. Take your puppy out to go potty on a leash, they go to the bathroom, right? You give them a little pet, you say good, all that fun stuff.
Bring them back in the house, put them in their kennel with their food and water for breakfast, right? So once you start that, maybe 20, 30 minutes later, you want to take them out again. So that’d be about 7.30.
Take them out for another potty break. And from that point forward is your intervals of time of going potty. So somewhere around 10 a.m. would be your next potty break, right?
From 7.30, 10 a.m. That’s about two and a half hours, right? Then from 10 a.m., maybe 1 p.m. potty break. Then from 1 p.m. to a 4 p.m. potty break.
And then at 6 p.m., give or take would be maybe you’re feeding, like your dinner time. So you take them out to go potty, put them back in their kennel, you give them their food and water, give them about 20-30 minutes, take them out again. So that’d probably be around 6.30 is another potty break.
And then 8 p.m., give or take another potty break. Let’s say you go to bed around 9. So, at 9 p.m., you’ll take them out to go potty.
Again, put them in their kennel, go to bed. But now, you got to plan your overnight potty breaks. So, maybe 12 a.m., maybe 3 a.m., somewhere around those times.
If you do that for a couple of days, I would say three days, right? Rule of three. If a puppy or a dog can do something three times in a row, right?
I feel like they generally have it down, right? Absolutely. So, I could proceed with progressing.
So, rule of three, if I get three successful days of this schedule, now I’m going to increase my intervals of time. The first intervals of time I would probably increase would be my nighttime.
Yeah.
So, I do one potty break at night, see if they can do that or maybe just like a later last potty and an earlier first potty, right? See if they can hold it overnight and then slowly increase the intervals of time throughout the day, right? So, that would be kind of like a general puppy recommendation.
For sure.
Now again, if that puppy is having problems, let’s say it’s having problems between the time I give it breakfast, let’s just say 7 AM to the time I take a potty, let’s just say 7:30 AM, I might do 7 AM to 7.20, 7.20, right? So, maybe drop 10 minutes on the potty after eating. Then for PMs, you know, like evening time, dinner, same thing, I might drop it down to 20 minutes.
But one thing I do recommend for a lot of people, especially as they’re getting close to trying to have no potty breaks over their nighttime, is to take a walk after dinner, right? So, you feed your puppy dinner, you let them go potty, sometime between that dinner time potty and your last potty for the night, take a 10 minute walk with your puppy down the street and back, that way it can work everything out of its system. You know what I’m saying?
For sure, for sure. Definitely some dogs that will not go to the bathroom until they walk.
Right.
My personal dog, Macy’s like that. She will not poop unless I walk her like a good half a mile to our poop spot.
Right.
She poops the same spot every time.
Yeah.
Good to go. But yeah, some dogs definitely need to get it walked out of them.
Right. Then the other thing too is if you’re preparing for a nighttime potty, cut off their water at a certain time, that way they don’t have to pee, which I do myself for myself. Right.
So I usually cut off my water between 7 and 7:30 PM. I’m going to bed about 8:30 PM myself. Right.
Old man.
An old man. So my dog, same thing. Cut off their water if they can’t hold their potty throughout the night.
So you also have that tactic available as well.
For sure.
Now, if you hit, like this schedule we just talked about is more formulated for like a puppy. But if you have, and I’ve done a bunch of these, trained a bunch of adult mature dogs that just are having troubles pottying in the house. You have to basically follow the same process.
But because they’re a little bit older, I can stretch out their potty breaks a little bit more. In general, there are some older dogs or rescue dogs that I’ve had that they just, they’re fighting it, dude. And I got to take them down to that one hour potty break until I can reliably get them to go outside, you know?
But for mature dogs, older dogs, I would just put some more time between your potty breaks until you get to the point where you’re able to do like a before breakfast, after breakfast, you know, around lunchtime, before and after dinner. You know, that’s like normal for most mature dogs when they’re able to actually have good potty training in place.
For sure.
What else you got, Danny? Any strategies to help with scheduling of a potty, potty breaks?
I mean, bottom line, it’s going to be different across the board. Like I kind of said earlier, it’s going to depend on your individual dog, your individual dog’s habits. Maybe, maybe your dog, either it’s your puppy and you just got it and you’re building good habits or it’s your more mature older dog trying to break habits.
I mean, even with puppies, you might want to break, you might have to break habits. Like maybe two weeks has been going to the bathroom in the house. That’s a habit that it’s built up over that time, right?
So, but yeah, like I said, bottom line, it’s going to, it’s going to depend. Like these schedules are definitely a good place to start, but like we’ve kind of discussed, you may have to adjust certain times of day, of the day or after certain events, like feeding, for example, to, you know, set your individual dog up for success. I mean, like we’ve had dogs that we do this schedule and it just comes naturally with the routine.
We have dogs that we need to start controlling water, controlling resources, better management, maybe a divider in the kind of limiting space, right? So just keep that in mind that, you know, it’s not just a black and white thing. It’s going to be different across the board for all dogs.
But I mean, I think we kind of covered most of the most important strategies. I mean, I’m just going to say it again. Consistency is key.
You got to stay consistent every single day, for sure.
Yeah.
And obviously, don’t get frustrated.
Well, I mean, you brought up a good point, too, with Macy, your dog. You said you walk to a certain place, I’m assuming, in the neighborhood, and she poops there.
So that’s actually, yeah, that is something that I will tell people, too. It’s be like, hey, if you, because it’s all about building that habit, like we’ve kind of said, if you take your puppy out and it goes to the bathroom in the corner of your yard, wherever it might go, take it to that same spot every time. The smell, it’s going to smell, it’s pee from yesterday or the day before, unless it may be rained or something like that, and flush it out.
But across the board, especially throughout the day, the smell of them going to the bathroom is going to stay there and then where they did that, right? So they’re going to have that association to, oh, this is where I go to the bathroom, right? And it’s not like, it’s not, you’re gonna have to worry about taking it to the same spot for forever.
But in the beginning, when you’re building this habit, definitely could be beneficial to take that, take them to that spot. Similar, when you think about like a potty pad, right? Goes to the bathroom, that same spot.
Obviously it’s in the house, not beneficial to the grand scheme of things, right? But it’s a habit that it’s forming, right?
So build that habit in the same spot in your yard or in your, you know, in your, in your, you know, in your neighborhood and believe it or believe it or not, a lot of dogs or puppies might struggle to go potty in a high traffic area.
Yeah.
So if there’s an area where there’s a lot of dogs, too much distraction, there’s, if there’s a lot of dogs pooping and peeing in the same place, there can be too much distraction. There can also be anxiety, right? Because of all the smell, right?
They want kind of their own place.
I mean, even with some dogs, if you’re on the side of a road or there’s cars going by or something like that, gathering people, it could be too much for them to focus on at once. They’re not really focusing on have to go to the bathroom. So that could be something to when you’re trying to build that habit, trying to take it to a low traffic area where there’s not a ton going on.
I think you use a, what’s the word, you use an example of saying that our potty loop that we have here is like a Facebook group.
Right. Facebook page.
If there’s too many posts in one area, your posts ain’t going to be seen.
Right.
You’re using that as like the dog was like, hey, if too many dogs go into the bathroom in this one spot, it’s going to struggle to find a spot for its own urine and all that stuff, its own scent.
Well, the other thing we do too is at Canine Revolution is whenever we take a dog potty, we say, go potty.
Yes.
So this will teach your dog that when you say the phrase, go potty, they know that’s their time to go potty. So that will help you translate your potty to other places too. For sure.
Because if you take your dog to the vet office, before you walk in, you want to go potty. So you take your dog over to a little grassy area, you say, go potty. Now they know, they understand, okay, it’s my time to figure out a place to go to the bathroom.
Exactly.
So that does help. But yeah, schedule’s a big deal. Schedule’s a big deal, obviously.
So let’s talk about some troubleshooting for common potty scenarios that we find a lot of people that we work with in. So the first one is, which we’ve already talked about a little bit, well, actually we haven’t talked about this one, is catching a dog that’s actively going potty in the house. So first of all, a lot of people, their gut reaction is just to start yelling, freaking out, getting all anxious.
The first thing you wanna do is just stay calm. Stay calm. So with that being said, let’s say, Danny mentioned earlier, if you notice your puppy or your dog giving you an indication that they’re potentially trying to find a place to go potty in your house, like sniffing a little bit too much, or starting to squat down, anything that indicates they’re about to go to the bathroom, just they already have their leash on them, or they should if you’re following the method here, but go over to them, grab the leash, walk them outside of the potty area, say go potty, right?
And then stay outside until they go potty. Soon as they go potty, say good, give them a little pet on the head, then you can go back inside. So if you find your dog or your puppy actively trying to go to the bathroom in your house, that’s a perfect training opportunity for you, right?
So it’s a good thing that that’s happening, so you can help distinguish to go potty outside and not in the house. The second scenario would be, what we already kind of mentioned is if you found an accident after the fact, then you want to run us through that one again real quick.
Number one, do nothing to the dog, like we’ve kind of discussed. Don’t get mad, don’t get frustrated, don’t yell at the dog. Dog does not know what it did wrong, so you doing that is just making the situation more stressful for the dog.
Yeah, because your dog just took a shit, then it walked away, now it’s carrying on.
Yeah, and now it doesn’t know what it did wrong, and you’re yelling at it, and then boom, it pees again. And now you’re more pissed, right? It’s a missive peeve because you’re yelling at it, right?
So, you know. But yeah, obviously don’t get frustrated, don’t get mad, just move on from then, right? It’s be like, all right, this was a loss that I took in the potty training regimen that I’m trying to build here, on to the next step, right?
What do I need to do differently to prevent this from happening again, right? And prevent myself from getting pissed off in my dog, right?
First thing I think about when this happens is, I failed. Exactly. I failed to keep it supervision.
It’s a failed training opportunity, right? Exactly.
So it’s my fault, but it is aggravating.
Yeah, for sure.
And your human reaction is to be pissed. That’s your human reaction. For sure, for sure.
I mean, yeah. But it goes back to remembering that your dog is a dog. Your dog is not like your kid just went and took a piss on your new curtains, right?
Dogs will do that too. Exactly.
But maliciously, they might, right? But dogs aren’t going to do that. So don’t treat a dog the same way as you would a kid doing the same thing.
You know what I mean?
It’s not how they operate, right?
I like how you brought that up, that the dog’s not doing it maliciously because some people probably think that. They probably think, they came in and peed on the carpet because of XYZ. Actually, that’s not why.
Exactly. I mean, going back to that kind of, some dogs, I’ve trained a dog that would go to the bathroom as a more dominant dog, and was going to the bathroom peeing on curtains, peeing on carpets and stuff like that, or in kids’ rooms trying to establish territory, essentially. So it’s like, there’s obviously things you can do outside of just potty training in that aspect.
But I mean, it all revolves around the same thing, not letting your dog do that, having good supervision, and building the habit of then going outside. But last step, if you find an accident after the fact, clean it good, clean it thoroughly, right? Make sure there’s no stains, make sure there’s no smells, do what you got to do.
But yeah, we discussed this last step of not showing your dog’s face and do it. It’s not going to work ever. It’s never going to work
Exactly. Yeah, it’s not going to help you. It’s going to hurt your relationship for sure.
Bottom line, stay calm.
Yeah. Next scenario, accident in the kennel. The dog has an accident in the kennel, pooping or peeing, whatever.
First of all, again, just like if you found an accident after the fact in your house, you don’t want to punish your dog, right? So all you want to do is assess what can I do different to help prevent this in the future. One, adjust the schedule is going to be a big one, so have shorter intervals of time between your potty breaks.
Number two, check your kennel size, right? If your dog has too much space in the kennel, that can hurt you, right? And some dogs, you give them just a little bit too much space, boom, they’re ready to go.
So you gotta keep that kennel tight until they prove that you can actually give them more space in the kennel, right? And there have been some extreme cases where dogs don’t care about pooping and peeing and they’ll lay in it, right? There are dogs out there that will do that.
They’ll frolick in it. It’s ridiculous.
So the short intervals of time are gonna be critical and there have been some crazy, crazy potty training cases where there was a dog that I trained one time vivid in my mind, right? Where it was so conditioned to going in the kennel, I’d bring it back in, I put it in its kennel, it was ready to go potty. Even if it just went outside.
So one of the things I did to overcome that was I took the dog into its kennel, right? Walked away, counted to 30, came back, 30 seconds, came back, took the dog out again to break the association of going in the kennel and it works, but it’s a lot of work. It’s a pain in the ass.
It’s a lot of work.
I turn the dog like that, it had the same habit. I put a note on her board for our assistants, be like, hey, once you take her out, wait five minutes and take her back out right after going to the kennel, because she’s conditioned basically to going into the kennel and go to the bathroom. We can change that association to going to the kennel and then going outside to go to the bathroom.
That’s the habit that we’re trying to build. So definitely, yeah, it can get crazy and can definitely get extreme.
The other thing I’ll do if I have a dog like that or a dog that’s having bad accidents in the kennel, even if I’m reducing the potty times, will be more walks. So I basically will do a short walk every time I take the dog out to go potty, just to get its body moving and try to get everything out of its body, right? So that’s something you can add in as well.
For sure. Danny, give us some more notes about the last troubleshooting scenario, which would be if we’re having problems as we extend our dog’s schedule out.
Yeah. I mean, just go back to step one, right? If you need to, go back to reducing time, right?
Reducing, if you need to reduce more space on the killing, maybe you’ve had a divider and you were good to go, then you’re like, oh, he or she good to go. You gave her more space, boom, goes the bathroom, right? So don’t be afraid to take steps back, right?
Don’t be afraid to realize what you’re doing wrong or what could be going wrong, because you might not always know, right? Maybe you weren’t there when it happened, right? But definitely, don’t be afraid to take a step back and realize what’s actually happening and what needs to be changed, for sure.
Yeah, don’t rush your process, that’s the big one.
For sure.
All right, so to kind of wrap this up, we went through a lot of information, tried to break it down for you guys in a way that’s easily digestible, but just remember that you need both structure and schedule to succeed with good potty training. And it’ll be worth it when you’re done, right?
For sure.
When you’re done with your potty training.
It’s a lot of work in the beginning, right? But it’s mitigating that frustration.
It’s even more work if you have that troublesome case where it’s just the dog’s fighting you, the puppy’s fighting you, right? But if you can dial it in, if you can be very consistent, right? With your structure and schedule and be able to modify those two factors based on how your dog’s responding to them, you will be successful.
And another thing to remember is to set up your dog for success, which means setting up your structure and schedule in the most beneficial way, right? Try not to have failure, although our dogs, when you’re doing this, there will be accidents, right? There’s only been a couple of cases where they had zero accidents, but there are going to be some accidents along the way.
So as soon as you handle those properly and continue progressing forward, you know, you’ll be successful with it, right? So just be patient. Be patient.
Don’t rush it and enjoy it when it’s done, right? Enjoy the process when it’s done.
Yeah.
So anyway, that’s what we got for you guys today. Potty training. Don’t forget, if you want to work with us, Canine Revolution Dog Training, we have some links down in the description below.
You can work with Danny, you can work with me, you can work with Chris or JC, these are any of our trainers. Then we have a whole staff of training assistance as well that’s helping us serve you as well. So we’ve got board and train programs, we’ve got private lessons, we’ve got virtual training depending on what you’re looking for.
So just let us know in the link below how we can help you guys. Next up, we’ve got Canine Revolution Apparel. So if you want a Canine Revolution shirt, you want a Canine Revolution hat, a beanie, a hoodie, a mug, a cup, whatever, you can go to Canine Revolution Apparel on Amazon.
And there is a link below as well. You can support yourself, you can support the podcast. And then also on Amazon, we have the I Love Dogs Canine Coloring Adventure Coloring Book.
You can find that in the description below, Official Canine Revolution Coloring Book. So if you got kids, right?
You might know we had coloring books.
You didn’t know we had coloring books? Canine Revolution Coloring Book, dude. But if you got kids and you’re potty training your puppy, guess what your kid needs?
The coloring book to keep them entertained while you’re working on your potty training. Exactly, for sure. So definitely check out the coloring book.
Also, if you want to feed your dog the optimal diet, which I will say, once you feed your dog the optimal diet, their potty will be better, right? Their poop will be better, their pottying schedule will be better, but if you feed them the optimal diet, right? That’s going to get you off on the right track.
So we recommend We Feed Raw, and we have a link in the description below. You can also go to the website www.wefeedraw.com, use the discount code CANINEREVOLUTION. That’s going to get you 25% off of your meal plan, alright?
And you will see a big difference in your puppy’s potty, for sure, right? The difference between just the poop is insane, right? So my dog, before he got on We Feed Raw, he was on the kibble, his poop was crazy, right?
It was sloppy. You get on the We Feed Raw, it’s less poop, and it’s better poop because their body’s actually absorbing all the nutrients that they need to, right? Which is pretty insane.
So check out We Feed Raw. We’ve also partnered with K9 Super Supplements, which is basically a raw diet in a powdered form for your dog. You can add that to your dog’s kibble, right?
They’ve got different formulas. They’ve got a weight gainer formula. They’ve got a multivitamin formula.
They’ve got a joint support formula. Check out the formulas. You got the discount code, caninerevolution, that’s going to get you 15 percent off your order at caninesupersupplements.com.
Link in the description below as well. And then last but not least, we’ve got JockoFuel. That’s going to be supplements for you, right?
Supplements for you to enhance your own performance, to enhance your own potty, right? So if you have, if you’re taking in the proper nutrients, your potty is going to be better, right? So check out the JockoFuel protein powder, the Mulk Protein, that’s good.
Plus, you need your protein for the day.
Of course.
Also check out the fish oil, right? Because you need your Omega-3s. Also check out the creatine.
Creatine?
The whole team’s on the creatine. The team’s getting bigger, the team’s getting stronger. Right?
So that’s the creatine at work, right? So check out jockofuel.com, discount code caninerevolution, 10% off of your order. Don’t forget to review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
That definitely helps us reach out and spread the word and educate other people as well. We try to bring you a lot of value in this podcast. So if you enjoy that, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Then don’t forget to check out the Canine Revolution and the Pack Talk Podcast YouTube channels as well for more videos, more education, more dog stuff. We got some crazy react videos on there too. So anyway, appreciate you guys listening, and we’ll check you out next time on the next podcast episode.
This is Pack Talk Podcast OUT.
From Pack Talk Podcast: #140 How to Potty Train Your Dog in 7 Days (Puppies + Adult Dogs), Sep 15, 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/140-how-to-potty-train-your-dog-in-7-days-puppies-adult-dogs/id1515830522?i=1000726870064&r=2294
This material may be protected by copyright.
🐕 Transform your dog’s bathroom habits in just one week!
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Whether you have an 8-week-old puppy or a stubborn adult dog still having accidents, this episode covers proven potty training methods that actually work.
What You’ll Learn:
✅ The #1 mistake that keeps dogs having indoor accidents
✅ Step-by-step 7-day potty training schedule for puppies
✅ How to house train adult dogs who’ve never been properly trained
✅ Crate training basics that speed up the process
✅ What to do when your dog has setbacks or accidents
✅ Signs your dog needs to go outside (and how to teach them to signal you)
✅ Common potty training problems and quick solutions
Perfect for new puppy parents, rescue dog owners, or anyone struggling with house training issues. No more cleaning accidents or replacing carpets!
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Introduction to Puppy Potty Training Method
1:30 – Setting Up Your Potty Training
3:45 – Essential Supplies You Need
5:20 – Step 1 of Potty Training
8:10 – Step 2 of Potty Training
11:30 – Handling Setbacks and Accidents
13:15 – Signs Your Puppy is Fully Trained
WATCH NEXT:
📺 2-week old Puppies : How to Set 2 Week Old Puppies Up for Success
📺 Introducing Puppies to the Leash : Introducing 6 Week Old Puppies to the Leash
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