Potty training

Most people believe that potty training is something that only starts with dogs at weeks around the time of adoption.  To avoid the nightmare of potty training at that age, a lot actually depends of the breeder or in this case foster parents.

It is not natural for a dog to excrete their waste in their sleeping or eating quarters.  In the wild the mother wolf takes very good care at keeping the den as clean as possible.  Iris cleaning the pool, as well as licking the pups bottoms falls directly under this category.  As soon as the pups are able to walk, which can happen as soon as 3 weeks or earlier depending on the breed, potty training should begin, just as a mother wolf would be teaching her young to excrete their waste outside of the den.

Although the pups won't be completely potty trained, you will be surprised at how quickly they pick up the concept of the designated areas.  It is all about the set up of their area.  As my mom and I were new to raising pups at such young ages, we looked for help on the web and found The Misty Method which was created by the breeder Bev Dorma from Misty Trails Havanese / Mastiffs.  The Misty Method is a system which is specific to 3 week old pups.

The basics to the method are the following

1. Have a designated potty area, eating and playing area, and a place to sleep.  
2. Keep the potty area to the back so when you enter the room they aren't stepping in poop as they jump at you.  
3. Keep the play/sleep area always clean, if an accident happens, change the area, so they don't get confused.
4. The poopy area should have a faint sent of poop even when you change the paper and pads.  As the puppies rely on the sent to understand the concept.
5. Once the puppies excrete waste on the proper side, immediately cover with fresh paper so that they don't walk through it again.  

The maintenance of the areas are very time consuming in the beginning, always having to change dirty blankets.  As they get older they begin to get the concept much better.  Then it is all about changing the papers and pads more often as they excrete waste more often.  

The poopy side should be lined with 'puppy pads' to absorbed some of the moisture and then covered by paper.  You will need LOTS OF NEWS PAPER! We flew through newpapre so quickly that my mom and I were out every recycling night scavenging our neighbours bins as well as going to local shoppers drugmarts to collect the old news papers.