Toilet training becomes much smoother when your furry friend learns to eliminate on command. With a consistent schedule and positive reinforcement, you can build reliable toilet habits in no time.
— By Dr. Ian Dunbar

Teach Your Puppy/Dog to Pee on Cue

Teaching your dog to pee on cue is as easy as 1-2-3-4…

• Say, “Go pee” (your choice of words).
• Stand still and wait.
• As soon as your puppy starts to pee.
• Calmly but sincerely praise and offer three treats in succession.

Success depends entirely on you being able to predict when your puppy needs to pee accurately, and so, when you are at home –

• Temporarily confine your puppy or dog to a dog crate, or on a short leash tied to your belt or an eye-hook in the baseboard.
• Offer a food-stuffed Kong to entice your puppy to lie down and busy themself, chewing their chew toy… quietly.
• Every hour on the hour, ask, “Do you want to go outside?” (Or to an indoor “Toilet”).
• Clip on a leash and briskly walk to the outside or indoor toilet and stand still.
• When your puppy pees, PRAISE like you mean it and offer three treats.
• Play/train your puppy for 5–10 minutes and then,
• Say, “Go to your crate”, where your puppy will find another food-stuffed chew toy.

Repeat the above sequence every hour on the hour throughout the morning, day, and evening. Teaching your puppy to pee on cue enables you to choose when, show where, and praise and reward your puppy for doing the right thing in the right place at the right time.

Teach Your Puppy/Dog Where to Pee/Poop When You’re Not at Home

Confine your puppy to a rectangular Ex-Pen, with a bed, a food-stuffed chew toy (or two), a source of fresh water, all fastened at one end, and a toilet at the other end, or best of all, a dog door leading to an outside fenced toilet.

Your puppy will naturally prefer to use the toilet because of their spatial, olfactory, and substrate preferences –

• They prefer to eliminate as far away as possible from their sleeping area.
• They prefer to pee where they smell urine, and they prefer to poop in the same spot each time, but only if no previous poops are present. So, clean up poop as soon as you return home, but only replace the urine-smelling substrate every few days.
• They prefer to eliminate on the same substrate as they did as younger puppies and are likely to do so in the future. The easiest toilet to construct is a plastic cat litterbox tray with a section of turf as the substrate. If you would like your pup to eventually eliminate on the sidewalk or a potty pad, use a concrete tile or potty pad sprinkled with some dirt.

If you provide the right substrate in the preferred location, using the toilet with become self-reinforcing.

Teach Your Puppy/Dog to Poop on Cue

After your puppy has dutifully peed on cue –

• Remain still, say “Go Poop” (your choice of words), and let them circle you on leash to have the chance ‘to go’ if necessary (lunge-pooping).
• Gently praise when your puppy sniffs the ground and especially when they short-couple (hind legs catch up to the front legs), prepare to address the spot (like a golfer), and especially while they meditate throughout the production.
• After your puppy poops, praise and offer half a dozen treats in succession.

Teach Your Puppy/Dog to ‘Hold it’

Showering your puppy with enormous praise and numerous tasty food treats for eliminating on cue, in an appropriate toilet area, and at regular intervals is by far the best way to prevent the need for your puppy to ‘hold it’, because there’s nothing left inside for an empty puppy to hold.

Additionally, praising and rewarding your puppy for eliminating motivates them to want to wait until you’re there to be a co-conspirator in the pee-poop party. It’s as if your puppy muses, “Wow! Cool! Why didn’t they tell me that I can cash in my urine and feces for liver treats! Eliminating indoors has no such fringe benefits. If I had only known, I wouldn’t have wasted my urine and feces on the carpet. Hmmm! In the future, I’m going to save up my pee and poop for when my owner accompanies me to my toilet. Also, when my people watch me pee in my toilet, they become strangely euphoric and happy, and that makes me feel happy too.”

Your puppy will much prefer to wait to eliminate in their toilet until you’re home to enthusiastically praise, handsomely reward, smile, laugh, and maybe play with your delightfully empty dog.

(Dr. Ian Dunbar, PhD, MRCVS a world-renowned veterinarian, animal behaviourist, and dog trainer who developed the science-based dog training methods used by Dunbar Academy.)