House Training

Greyhounds arrive at their new homes not house trained, due to having spent their lives in Kennels. We try to work on this as much as possible at Hillcrest but it will be something you need to work on as their new family too. 

The most important points are to give your dog the opportunity to toilet outside as much as possible, stack the odds in your favour with when you let them out/feeding routine etc and rewarding good behaviour and cleaning up thoroughly any accidents.

Let your new dog out- every hour, on the hour! And every time they wake up, after they have eaten or had a drink and after any play time. Also, let them into the garden after a walk too – some dogs find walks too distracting to think about toileting. Always stay with them so you can reward once they have been to the toilet too. The mistake often made is just to put the dog outside and hope they go, but often the dog finds that being alone in a strange place very uncomfortable and concentrates on getting back inside to their owner, rather than learning to go to the toilet outside.

In warmer weather it’s a temptation to leave the doors to outside open, which is fine but its still important to take your dog outside to toilet, otherwise they won’t know which is outside and which is inside and can result in mistakes happening. 

A really vital point is to NOT punish your dog if they do toilet indoors, this only teaches our dogs that it is wrong to go to the toilet in front of humans! This makes your house training even harder as they wont want to toilet infront of you and will try and sneak off and toilet instead, which can result in puddles (and worse!) behind the sofa!

If you do have an accident to clean up then  using a warm solution of biological washing powder (for example, a teaspoon of powder dissolved in a cup of warm water) will help remove all traces. 

How do I know when my dog wants to toilet? 

Watch for the typical signs that your dog needs to go to the toilet – these may include sniffing the floor, circling, looking restless or going into a room they have previously toileted in. Take them immediately to your chosen place in the garden and wait patiently until they have toileted and praise. If you are working or otherwise distracted, a cat bell on your dogs collar can help alert you to them moving about.

At night

Most adult dogs will sleep during the night and won’t need to go to the toilet. However, some may still need to go, especially if they haven’t got the hang of waiting and toileting outside yet. Again a cat bell on collar can alert you your dog is awake, if need be set an alarm to get them out for a toilet in the middle of the night to start with and then leave gap between going to bed and this longer and longer until its all night.

The easiest solution is to put your dog’s bed either in your bedroom or nearby. If they are outside the bedroom, leave your bedroom door open so that if your dog wakes up and needs to go during the night, you will hear whining or moving around. Get up and calmly take your dog outside. Put your dog back to bed quietly when you come back in. At night, it is especially important not to excite your dog in anyway as you don’t want them to learn that going out into the garden in the early hours is ‘fun’!

Although housetraining a dog can be hard work and tiring – be patient and consistent, and all your efforts should pay off! As your dogs gets better at this life skill you can increase time they are left/ between garden outings.