Labrador Retriever Dog Gifts : Articles : Lab Training : Housebreaking

Housebreaking Your Labrador Retriever
WHAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW

Any health care links and information in this article should NOT to replace a veterinarian visit or advice; please take your Lab to a vet immediately at any sign of odd behavior, such as aggression, or any symptoms of illness or injury.

Bringing your Lab puppy home is one of the most exciting moments. There is a new bundle of furry joy that enters your family and settles in for a long and nurturing bond between dog and human. However, this joy can quickly disperse as the role of housebreaking comes along and you start pulling your hair out. Okay, so you may not pull your hair out but housebreaking can be quite frustrating for a number of people.

First, the new Lab owner must realize that not all dogs are the same and not all Labrador Retrievers are the same. Once pup may be easily trained by the time it is 12 weeks old, while another pup could be 5 months old before being fully housebroken. It does not matter if your new puppy is an English (Show) Lab or an American (Field) Lab or even if you have two Labs from the same bloodline or litter. Each puppy is different and must be trained according to what fits for that particular pup.

What is housebreaking?

Housebreaking is the act of getting your pup to go to the bathroom where you want it to go. Usually this is outside of the home but some owners of smaller breed dogs choose to litter train their pups instead. For Labrador Retrievers, litter training is not an option so we must assume that the Lab will be trained to pee and poop outside of the home.

A pup is not considered housebroken the first time it does its business outside. The pup must not have an accident within the house for 12 consecutive weeks. This means that if the pup goes for 11 weeks before it has an accident in the house, it is back to beginning and the 12-week countdown must start all over again.

Importance of Schedules

Schedules are one of the most important aspects of housebreaking your pup. Whether the pup is 8-weeks old and coming into its first home or 5-years old and finding its new forever home, Labrador Retrievers do very well on schedules. The first thing any new or expecting family should do is create a bathroom schedule for their new dog.

Puppies around 8-16 weeks old will need to go to the bathroom every 2 hours. Therefore, you should schedule bathroom breaks every couple of hours, even if your pup does not show signs of having to go to the bathroom. If you keep to a 2-hour schedule, the pup will catch on quickly and start to begin to hold from going to the bathroom indoors until that scheduled potty break. As the pup gets older, this 2-hour schedule can be extended an hour at a time, until the pup can finally wait up to 8 hours or more. Please note that this is a gradual process and will take several weeks to months before being able to wait that long as a puppy's bladder is underdeveloped when young and cannot physically wait that long without having the urge.

Older Labs that come into a new home will do very well with a schedule. This lets the dog know what to expect from the family and makes the dog feel more secure. Anticipation and nervousness is part of being introduced to a new family and a schedule makes them feel more secure in their surroundings and their place within the family. You will need to start off slow with the pup and allow for gradual changes as well. However, an older dog will most likely handle incremental time changes better.

Training to go Potty

So now that you know what housebreaking is and the importance of scheduling, how do you get the pup to go outside? It is a simple process of awarding the pup for good behavior.

Most Lab owners follow a very simple routine when they take their pup outside: take the pup out on a leash directly to the spot you want it to eliminate, use a command to tell the pup to do its business such as Go Potty, do not play with the pup while outside for bathroom time, as the pup goes potty repeat the command over (this helps train the pup to go on command), treat and praise when the pup goes potty, do not return the pup to the house until 10 minutes have passed even if it has already eliminated (it may go potty again), and praise the pup when it comes back into the house.

Beyond the 2-hour schedule, pups will need to go to the bathroom:

• When they wake up in the morning or after a nap
• Before they go to sleep
• After they play
• Before and after they go on a car ride
• When they get overly excited

If you are crate training your Labrador Retriever, you will want to make sure to keep the crate small enough for the pup to only be able to turn and sleep in. Extra room in the crate allows the pup an area to eliminate as they will not go to the bathroom where they sleep. Take the pup out to go potty before you crate your pup and after you let it out of the crate. If the pup cries while in the crate and you believe it needs to go to the bathroom, open the door, put the leash on it immediately, and take it outside right away. Do not praise or play with your pup when taking it out of the crate or it will link crying and barking to getting released from the crate and this will make it more difficult to crate train. When the pup is done eliminating outside, bring it right back to the crate. This teaches the pup that crying or barking will not get any play time, love, praise, or cuddling and will just result in allowing it to go outside to do its business.

Housebreaking is not always an easy task but it doesn't have to result in frustration and hair loss. With Labrador Retrievers, owners need to remain consistent and persistent in their training. Most owners become frustrated because they try something for a week or two and when it doesn’t work, they either give up or try something new. Unfortunately, this ends up confusing the Lab and the pup will be deemed un-trainable. When training fails, it is usually that the owner does not remain consistent with the training or gives up all together. This leads to an 80-pound dog that rules the roost and a very important bond between owner and Lab that is lost.

Those owners, such as me, that continue to remain persistent and consistent in training, can tell you that it is well worth the energy. My 2-year old Lab, Dakota, was housebroken by the time she was 12-weeks old. However, Cheyenne, my 1-year old full-blood sister to Dakota, was not fully housebroken until almost 6-months old. Why the difference? Although they both share the same genetic make up, they are two separate Labs with two distinct, and opposite, personalities. The point is that each Labrador Retriever is distinctly different however, as long as you remain consistent and persistent in their training, even those, like Cheyenne, who are not as easily trainable as other Labs can be training. Your Lab would never give up on you so never give up on your Lab!