A plastic or wire kennel big enough to accommodate your new puppy when he wants to eat or sleep or day dream about chasing cars has all sorts of advantages. But surely the one of finest interest to your puppy’s owner is how “crate training” can teach the puppy to wait till he is being walked outside to relieve himself rather than doing so in your house. The system is surprisingly swift. In fact, crate training can have your puppy house trained inside two weeks.

The solution is the uncomplicated fact that puppies do not like to poop or pee in the same place that they eat or sleep. So as long as your puppy is inside his kennel, he will tend to “hold it in,” provided you of course keep track of the time. You should take your puppy outdoor as soon as he wakes up in the morning and after he eats. Beyond that, you can use this rule of thumb. Add one to the number of months your puppy has been alive. That’s the optimum number of hours that should pass between trips outdoors. So a two month old puppy should be walked every three hours, a three month puppy every four hours and so forth. Stick to that schedule and “paper training” won’t be expected.

Soon your pet will start to associate going out of doors with “going.” This can be reinforced by visiting the same place outdoors and making it his own special puppy potty. Rewards are always favourable for encouraging positive puppy behavior. So carry a small food treat to give to the puppy after a productive walk. When you come back, you can even give your puppy the run of the house for at least a little while. But being a puppy, he won’t need much encouragement from you to gravitate toward the safety and familiarity of his good old “crate”. That’s specially true if you or other family members are in the room with him.

In general, don’t keep the kennel door locked except perhaps in the course of sleeping hours. If you expect to be away from from the puppy for any length of time, keep him corralled in the area around the kennel with a baby gate. A kitchen or a laundry room is perfect for this. And never use confinement in the kennel as punishment at all. Your puppy’s kennel is his home, not his prison.

Pet PLace presents assets on how you can pick which pet to purchase and how to care for puppies.

Wenton Lee loves all kinds of pets especially dogs and cats. He pursues to share his own passion about dogs to others.