Paper training is when you train your puppy to eliminate on paper inside of your floor. This method works best if you are not going to be at home for long periods of time since a puppy cannot be asked to hold her bladder for more than 3 hours. Keep in mind that paper training is not house training and can actually make it take longer to teach your puppy to eliminate outside. Paper training takes time and patience, but it is well worth the effort.
- Select a good room to use that has linoleum or wood floor – any place where it will be easy to clean up any mess that makes it to the floor. Bathrooms are a good choice.
- When you begin your puppy’s training, confine the puppy to the selected room and lay down paper so that it covers about a fourth of the room. This paper should be thick enough to hold about ½ a cup of liquid without seeping onto the floor.You might want to put plastic down underneath the paper to protect your floor or purchase special plastic-backed puppy training pads.
- In this room you will want to have the puppy’s bed, water, food and toys. Give the puppy everything he needs to play by himself. Put the food, water, toys and bed as far away from the newspaper as possible. Puppies will naturally want to eliminate farthest away from their bed.
- When you start training your puppy, you will have to spend some time with him in the room. Look for signs that your puppy needs to eliminate. These might include sniffing the floor or walking in a circle. When you see these signs, bring the puppy to the newspaper. You should also bring him to the newspaper after meals and play.
- When you have the puppy on the newspaper, tell him to eliminate. You can use whatever wording you feel comfortable with, “go potty” or “go pee pee” are both common phrases; you can use any phrase at all as long as you’re consistent. While at first your puppy will not know what you are saying, eventually he will be able to make an association between your words and what he is doing.
- After your puppy eliminates, make sure to praise him. This will enforce what you are trying to get him to do. Puppies want to please you.
- When cleaning up, take off the first few sheets of paper. Not removing all of the paper is important because the puppy will want to eliminate where he smells his own feces and urine.
- After the puppy has success using the newspaper on his own, you can try to leave him alone for short periods of time. If you have to go to work, try and come home at lunch to give your puppy some much needed attention.
- If your puppy has an accident, don’t punish him. Instead, spend more time anticipating when the puppy will need to eliminate and put him on the paper.
- When you puppy is using the paper successfully, you can make the area of paper smaller. You can even move the puppy to another room.