Puppy Training: Paper Training

Puppy training includes teaching your dog manners and socialisation skills but also toilet training.

Toilet training your puppy can be very stressful, but it doesn’t need to be. Like with any training, you need to focus on positive reinforcement, be patient and consistent. This, along with the knowledge of how to do it right and necessary toilet training equipment will set you up for success in no time.

Paper Training

Paper training is a very effective way to housetrain puppies. I’ve used this puppy training method with my first two dogs. Paper training teaches your puppy to toilet on progressively smaller areas of paper, or training pads, until you are able to direct the puppy to a specific area where you want them to toilet. This may eventually mean outdoors or in a certain spot inside.

How to Paper Train a Puppy

1. Use a puppy pen or gate to create an area where the puppy can be confined when unsupervised.
2. Line the entire area with training pads or old newspapers. At first the puppy will toilet all over the place, but this way it will always be on a pad. Remove soiled pads frequently.
3. Reduce the number of pads or papers by taking away one pad every few days, leaving a small area without a pad. Because the puppy is learning a habit of toileting on the pads, he should gravitate to the area where the pads are still covering the floor.
4. Puppies don’t like to toilet too near where they eat or sleep, so start removing the pads that are closest to the pup’s bed and bowls.
5. Over the next few weeks, gradually reduce the pads by removing each pad until there is one single pad left. Make sure that the remaining pad is the furthest from pup’s bed and bowl. If you want your puppy to use an inside toilet, start moving the last pad towards it. Finally you can start placing the pad on it. When the puppy is confident about using that pad, remove it and keep an eye on your puppy to see whether he’s using the dog toilet from then on.
6. If you want your puppy to start going outside, take a partially soiled pad to your outside toilet area and place it on the ground. This will teach the puppy to toilet outside while still having the comforting feel of the pad underneath his paws. Once the puppy is confident about going outside, stop using indoor pads completely.