Posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 by Richard in 4a Gundogs 8-15 weeks old (Training 1st Steps), 5a Contuned Training 15 weeks Plus, basic Training Tips |

If You Keep Your Gundog In Your House You Need Housetraining

Some Gundog Owners dont House train their Dogs, Ron Never housetrains, But I believe even if you keep your dog in a kennel you should housetrain any dog.

I alwayslove having a puppy at home and always keep him or her in my house but one thing that I don’t love is having to housetrain them. Give me any other training and I will usually be right and ready to get started but then again, there isn’t a lot of middle of the night training sessions to deal with when I am doing other training.

Not that housetraining is that hard and it can be done very easily if you do one thing; train yourself before you train the puppy. Generally, the most problems that you are going to run into with training is going to be more about mistakes that you made and less about the puppy so it is important that you really take the time to properly train your gundog puppy.

Before we look at a few tips, I would like to mention three points that should be in your mind when you begin training. These are:

1. Train according to age: One of the biggest mistakes that I see is the lack of training that is applicable to your puppy’s age. First, you should always start training young, usually when your puppy arrives home at 8 weeks and it should never be put off until your puppy is older than 12. The best window of opportunity is between 8 and 12 weeks of age. Next, make sure that you are setting everything up according to their age. The younger they are, the shorter period of time your puppy can hold their bladder. The general rule of thumb is a half hour to an hour for every month of age. So a puppy that is two months old will hold their bladder for one to two hours. This is important during the night or while you are at work so that you can have someone come and let your little gundog puppy out in the middle of the day.

2. Keep an eye on your pup: Another problem with housetraining is not keeping an eye on your puppy. This is usually when the puppy goes off and has an accident inside. Basically, if your puppy is up, keep an eye on her. If you are too busy to watch her for a period of time, either put her in her kennel or leash her to your belt (this only works if you are sitting, such as working on the computer). When she wakes up, or starts to sniff around, you can take her right outside to go to the washroom.

3. Create a routine: If you want housetraining to work, you will need to create a routine for it. First, make sure that you are getting up, and going to bed at the same time. This will help your gundog puppy set her schedule as well. Next, feeding and watering should also be done on a schedule. While you may offer water all the time when you gundog is older, when they are puppies, only put it out for certain periods in the day (make sure she is getting enough water however). Free feeding and watering can be the death of training and it is really hard to determine when your puppy really needs to go. Also make sure that you have a set routine at night and that you slowly begin to stretch out the hours at night so eventually, your gundog puppy will be able to sleep through the night without having to go. Lastly, always use the same door, and the same routine when you go outside. This will teach your gundog to go for a certain door instead of just wandering around the house when she has to empty her blader.

Whew, those tips were really big but they are the basis of housetraining your gundog. The rest is actually just a matter of individual choice and will be done at your gundog puppy’s own speed and your ability to train them.

To properly train your dog, you should do the following:

• Always take your gundog puppy outside after she has eaten. The length of time between eating and emptying their bowels will be different with each dog so really pay attention to this. I had one dog that wouldn’t eliminate until 45 minutes after eating, even at 8 weeks old and another that emptied their bowels within 5 minutes of eating. The lesson here is the golden rule of “20 minutes” does not apply to most dogs.

• Never punish your gundog if they had an accident in the house. This does nothing for the training and may actually ruin the bond you are building with her. No bond, and there is no sense even starting any gundog training after this.

• If your dog is urinating (or other) in the house, break the behavior. This means that you either say, “NO!” loudly or you clap your hands. Basically, you want to startle enough for your gundog puppy to stop urinating. Once she does, pick her up immediately and take her right outside. When she gets there and continues to do her business, praise her for being such a good dog. (One thing I want to point out is that you should never overuse NO. If you are going to be using no in your other training, don’t use it for now. Any loud command that stops the behavior will work.)

And that is all there is to housetraining. If you want your dog to eliminate on command, which I do with all my dogs, wait until the dog is in the act of defecating (not urinating) and then say, “Do your business,) or whatever the command will be, and then praise the dog for doing it. This won’t teach your dog to go if they don’t have to but it can be a relief to use the command when you having been standing outside for 20 minutes waiting for your gundog to find that perfect spot.

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