How to potty train a puppy at night
Short answer: Wake up in the middle of the night, then walk the puppy out to potty.
A puppy can't make it the whole night without peeing, and it's not good to have the puppy pee in their crate. For one, the puppy would soon learn that it's okay to pee in their crate (plus, it would delay potty training for a long time).
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Ian Dunbar's Potty Training Method
See section on crate training, also, because using a crate is such a big part of this process (and it lists the equipment to get).
Dr. Dunbar has a very precise method of potty-training puppies. He says that in some ways, they are very easy to train, but they have very small bladders and can only hold their pee for a little over an hour. Thus, if you can bring your puppy outside every hour (on the hour), then the pup will never pee or poop inside.
What do you do at night? At night, puppies can hold their pee and poop for about 4 hours. So set your alarm for 4 hours into the night, then wake up, go wake up the pup, and lead the puppy outside to pee. (Note: Don't carry the puppy, but rather, insist that the puppy actually walks out with you).
What do you do when you have to leave the house for more than an hour? Well, sometimes you may have to leave the puppy alone (although it's best to bring the puppy with you because then they can get more socialization). In this case, set up a fence around the crate (see this post, which is two blog pages of notes on Dunbar's potty training book, for details). In the area between the crate and the edge of the fence, put down a potty pad. That way, the puppy can pee in a "designated spot" rather than randomly peeing on your floor. Again, this method is only as a backup. Usually, you shouldn't be leaving your puppy alone for more than an hour (because you want to bring the puppy outside to pee every hour, thus never letting the puppy pee inside).
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Part 3, Notes on book "Animal Assisted Play Therapy"
As part of our staff's continuing education training to continuously improve, we take yearly seminars to improve our skills.
Encourage people to let the dog come to them.
3-second rule
Works especially well for cats
Pet for 3 seconds. Stoop. Watch for stress signals.
Relationship builder: Point out treats that you "find" on the ground,
Horses:
Work for 90 minutes.
Break for 60.
Work for 90.
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Emulating Germany
Did you know that Germany outlawed shock collars many years ago?
And now, Petco in the US stopped selling shock collars! So cool! (Goose approved this message.) #petco #stoptheshock
We believe in positive reinforcement training for many reasons, including that it works better than punishment.
Notes from book, "Social, Civvy, and Savvy"
Laura VanArendonk Baugh CPDAT-KA KPACTP has written a wonderful book on socializing puppies, "Social, Civil, and Savvy." We are continuously improving, and reading about new animal training techniques is part of this process. Here are my notes!
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Elevator practice
Goose, a PTSD service dog in training, did very well in the elevator. (We have been practicing in different locations.) On the way up, he even stepped up onto the cart!
Update from Sunny!
Update from Sunny! He got a new pig today and he hasn’t put it down he’s so happy! 🐷 Sunny is named after the favorite song of a boy who received an autism service dog from Pawsitivity, and his favorite song was "Sunshine on My Shoulders."
Home Light
Story time: (I'm writing this because I want to support one of our sponsors, HomeLight). When we had to sell my parent’s home a few years ago, we had a great deal of difficulty because they had lived in it for years and had only done minimal updates. There was nothing really wrong with it, but it hasn’t been redone in years. We thought about redoing the kitchen and bathroom, but I didn’t have the skills to do it alone. Luckily, there was a good solution.
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