To begin with, you should set your goal. Most people would like to have their dog relieve himself outside. If this is your goal you should not paper train as this teaches the dog to relieve himself inside.
Remember that you reap what you sew. The more effort you put into this, the faster your puppy will be house trained. If done correctly, most puppies can be house trained in 3 weeks. Ideally you should be with your puppy and bringing him outside every few hours so he has the opportunity to relieve himself. Puppies seem to relieve themselves after they eat, after they play, and after they sleep. So it would be wise to bring your puppy outside following any of those activities.
You will also need to watch your puppy constantly. This way you can watch for signs of a mistake that?s about to happen and correct him immediately. You see, if your puppy makes a mess and you don?t find it for 10 minutes and then discipline him, he won?t understand what he did wrong. You need to correct him right away for him to make the correct association between his action and your response. So if your puppy pops a squat in your living room you should tell him ?NO, OUTSIDE!? This should startle him to stop and then you can bring him outside where he can finish his business in the right place. Don?t forget to clean up the mess in your house. :D Now while we are on the topic, if your dog does have an accident in the house, Do not rub his nose in it! Like humans, it takes time for dogs to develop bladder control. Also remember that even after your dog is trained, accidents can and will happen. You wouldn?t wipe your toddler?s nose in their mess if they didn?t make it to the bathroom on time when you?re potty training them (at least I?d hope you wouldn?t), so don?t do it to your dog please.
Another key to success is a lot of patience with your dog. When you are first training them you may have to wait outside for 10 minutes while they chase a butterfly until they finally stop and go pee. Bringing your dog to the same spot each time seems to help with this issue as it tends to remind them why they are outside. I remember when I was first training my dog I would wait outside for 10-15 minutes and she wouldn?t pee so I would get impatient and bring her back in the house. Within a few minutes there would be a present on the floor waiting for me.
You should also be associating actions with words. Meaning that you need to pick phrases for your dog to associate with going outside and going pee. For instance with my dog I always said ?want to go outside?? then once we were out there I would say ?go pee? repeatedly as she relieved herself. By doing this she learned to associate those actions and phrases. Now all I have to say is ?want to go outside?? and she runs straight to the door, and when I say ?go pee? she obliges. Now outside is really the key word here for me. As you can see I phrase it as a question for my dog. However, if she is caught relieving herself inside, it would be stated as a command.
A key issue I have people come to me with is that they can?t let their puppy out every few hours because they need to sleep. Since dogs are den animals (in the wild of course), they have the instinct to keep their nest clean. Therefore, if you keep your puppy in a crate at night or attached to his bed by a 5 foot rope he will naturally try to avoid soiling it. For the first couple months you should keep the puppy close to you while you sleep. This way he can wake you up if he needs out. A new puppy will not go through the night without needing outside as he will not have the bladder or bowel control yet, but as he gets older the night trips will decrease in frequency until they disappear entirely.
