Potty Training: Tools
As with any job, there are important tools that you can use to help you be successful. Following is a list of the tools I recommend for an easy potty training experience.
- your eyes (most important tool)
- your ears (second most important tool)
- harness (for very young puppies 8-16 weeks ONLY)
- 20 ft. leash
- 6 ft. leash
- Treat bag
- Training treats (freeze-dried liver, Wholesome's No Grain Puppy - Golden, Natural Balance food roll - cut up into tiny pieces - also called "puppy crack", tiny steak or hotdog pieces)
- chew toys (pig's ears, cow hooves, antler, bully stick, dental chews, yak chews, ice cubes)
- "quiet" toys (plush, firehose, soft frisbee, old socks tied together, Kong, treat-based thinking games)
- exercise pen
- crate
- pad/dog bed for crate
- bacteria/enzyme cleaner for dog urine
- clean towels or paper towels
- puppy pee pads (optional)
- bell (optional)
For this potty training technique to work, you must have your puppy either tethered to you or in a crate, x-pen, or small enclosed space. All of these different spaces are places where puppy learns lots of other valuable skills that will later be fine-tuned through further training. However, in this unit, we are discussing potty training only, so just know that there are many other things to work on in all of these spaces, which are beyond the scope of this unit.
In the next section of this unit, we will discuss the two most important tools and how to use them.