How do you toilet train a puppy when your home’s mainly carpeted

[Harrison376]

Any tips? It’s 2 years off yet. Only our kitchen doesn’t have carpet and i can’t imagine staying in there for months on end.

You don't! Unless the carpet is old and you plan to replace it soon after.

You invest in a hundred bottles of Dr Beckmans and you resign yourself to cleaning up wee for the next few months.

I thought that would be the answer 🙈 we’ve got the option to convert the garage into an extra living room type area which would adjoin the kitchen. £5k though! Would be a very handy space for the dog when we’re out but it would be cheaper to just replace all the carpets! To be fair, in another 2 years they’ll all need replacing anyway (all except the living room which we’ve had done recently but we could shut that off to the pup until they’re reliably trained)

If you are prepared to spend time doing nothing but house training the puppy you can do it quickly with few accidents in the home. Our pup was house trained in less than a fortnight and only once pee'd in the house because I didn't watch him closely enough. If you use a crate (we didn't) then that can help as well.
Essentially you take the puppy out on a lead every thirty minutes as well as after food, after sleep, after play. Firstly you mooch round the garden as soon as they squat you give it a word that will become the command for them to toilet. I used "be quick" you praise the puppy like it is the cleverest animal ever.
Next time you go in the garden you mooch and say your command. If the puppy goes you praise like mad if not you pick up the puppy and carry it around inside for five minutes (don't put it down so it can't pee inside) then go back outside mooch and give the command again.
As well as going outside regularly you need to watch the pup inside and look for signs they might be thinking of toileting so nose down and circling are prompts for you to whisk the dog outside and give the command outside.
You need to avoid the dog toileting inside at all costs so that it doesn't become confused and also because it will want to pee over the top of where it has pee'd previously so don't use puppy pads as that just teaches a puppy that toileting inside is ok.
It's time consuming initially and better to have a puppy when it's warmer as you spend a lot of time outside initially but worth it to get a quick result.

We just did it very quickly. Took a month off work between us and spent pretty much 24/7 with the pup. Took him out every half an hour or so, after meals, drinks, play, training and naps.

He only had 2-3 accidents in the house.

I don't think the material on your floor has anything to do with how quick a pup is trained - the vast majority of toileting problems are down to pups being left alone for too long at too young an age (so they have no choice but to toilet inside), and owners not taking them out often enough.

Yes, some breeds are notoriously hard to train (chihuahuas and frenchies come to mind) but mostly it's just about consistency and repetition.

I do fleshmarketclose method, I have lots of dogs but only had a handful of accidents between them at thr beginning when they were puppies and that was due to me messing up and not getting them out on time. I'd crate at night and make sure to have an alarm on when they're really young for a nighttime pee before they could last the full night. If your religious with the method it works really well, it's just knackering 2 to 3 weeks but then it gets easier.

I’d be completely on board with an intensive month of training. DH and I could take 2 weeks off each (we’d just need to be on the same page re.compands/techniques). Many thanks for all the information, it’s very helpful.

Not carpet but we had just got a new wooden floor fitted.... very intensive toilet training.... I crate trained and took her to the toilet every half hour at first and then lengthened it out. She wasn't allowed to be out of her crate without supervision until she really understood the toiletting and I knew her cues. And I would only train/play with her inside straight after she'd been for a wee. I think I had two accidents, both my fault because I'd lost track of time and wasn't paying attention. One was right by the back door so she'd even tried to get to the right place!

Also just saw your kitchen isn't carpeted. We had the same and it was useful for 'testing' her with more freedom. So she'd come out of crate, have a wee in the garden, spend 10-15mins in the lounge with me, then into the kitchen for the rest of the time until it was wee time again. She came home at 9 weeks and was pretty reliable and would take herself to the backdoor to ask to go out by about 13/14 weeks (like a toddler though in that she didn't give much warning and if she went to the door she needed a wee NOW)

We had just recarpeted our home when we got our pup 🙈

Honestly though it was fine. You just need to be really consistent and on the ball (and prepared to get up in the night for a while). Get some proper enzyme cleaner for any accidents too.

You live in the kitchen. Our puppy had the kitchen and garden for about the first 6 weeks. Came up to sleep in their cage in a bedroom.

We had a few accidents on carpets but they mop straight up.

The puppy will need to be contained and not wander until at least 6 months- not because they wee but because the eat random stuff and chew. So shutting off the living room will not be a problem. Every room will be shut off.

I was lucky with my pup, she would mostly hold herself during the night but during the day to start off with I would take her out to the garden every half hour and say wee wee over and over again. When she went for a wee she would get a big praise for it.

As she got older it was every hour. She's a year old now and she wees on command which is handy

Depends on the breed too, some are far easier to train than others. French Bulldogs are notoriously slow and are put off by bad weather. They can take up to a year or more to be 100% reliable.

You can toilet train puppies in two weeks. Don't drag it out for months

We got our girl at 8weeks she was toilet trained virtually straight away (we do have two other dogs which probably helped) and I can count on one hand the number of accidents she had. We didn't use puppy pads and she was crate trained