I little while back, I asked what your most common pug problems were. I took those problems to Chet from The Dog Training Secret, and he responded, giving us a few tips for house training. Disclaimer: The Dog Training Secret is an Urban Pug sponsor.
Anyway, here’s what he has to say:
“Here are 3 quick Pug house training tips to have your pug stop peeing all over your home.
The first thing you need to understand about house training pugs is what’s actually going on inside your pug that’s causing the behavior. And then how to use a training & management program that quickly puts all those things back in check.
Here’s the most common reasons Pugs aren’t house trained yet:
1. Your Pug Isn’t Neutered – About 60% of Pug house training problems can be fixed by neutering your pug early in life, around 6-9 months. The older you let your pug get, the less likely neutering will help your problem.
2. Your Pug Has Too Much Unsupervised Access To Your Entire House – Most pugs won’t pee in their OWN territory, like their home. And it’s hard for pugs who are given access to your whole house early on, to ever realize it’s all theirs and they don’t need to mark it. Most successful pug house training routines first start by leaving unsupervised pugs in a crate, which they won’t eliminate in.
When your pug stays in his crate without peeing, then switch to putting him into a slightly larger area of your home that he seems to NEVER pee in. And continue to gradually enlarge the area of your pug’s environment until he stops marking in it. If he starts marking when you give him more space, you’re giving him too much space too quickly.
If you’d like a more detailed step-by-step action plan of how to do this with your pug, you can access a 60 minute step-by-step interview on how to do this inside my Hands Off Dog Training Program.
3. Your pug Doesn’t See YOU as a Leader of your Home – Most pugs who mark up their owners homes do so because of a dominance issue. And when you fix the dominance issue, the problem goes away. And you do NOT do this by YELLING, hitting, or punishing your pug.
Your pug learns to respect you as its leader in subtle ways. I recently did an interview with a Dominance expert on 15 subtle things dog owners accidently do to tell their dog’s they aren’t in control of their home. And I was shocked when he told me how things like letting your dog sleep in your bed at night, letting your dog walk through doors before you, and letting your dog bark when strangers come to the door, if allowed, are ways you’re telling your dog he’s the boss and not you.
And if you use training to regain control over your pug, the house training can go MUCH faster.
If you’ll follow these three guidelines, and also make sure you clean up any of your pug’s accidents with a cleanser specifically designed to eliminate pet urine odor, and NOT a normal household cleaning product, your pug’s house training will be MUCH more successful.
Hope this helps,
Chet Womach
TheDogTrainingSecret.com