People often wonder how long it's going to take before their dog becomes house trained.  Which is a valid concern.  There are many factors that come into play like your dog's age, intelligence and its health.  But the most important factors have to do with the owner and how much time he puts into housebreaking a dog and the process he puts in place while maintaining consistency with it.

    When you first bring your new dog home you should quickly establish a living area for the dog.  I recommend that this area be small and within easy eyesight.  The are should be easily clean up and be hard floors; no carpets.  A gate should be used to limit your dog's ability to move around the house.  But don't worry this will be only necessary for the duration of the training period.  Once you have a potty trained dog you will no longer need the gate.  You will want to get a good cleaning product made for pets that eliminate urine and potty odors.  Because if a dog smells it own urine or potty in the house it will instinctively keep urinating or going potty in the home.  Soap and water will just not due.  Ammonia smells too much like urine and should also be avoided.  Now the ground of this are you have laid out for your dog should be covered in clean newspaper to make accidents easy to pick up and clean.  Replace the newspapers that have been soiled immediately remembering to clean the floor beneath it with your pet cleaner.

    Now that you have established your dog's new domain, you should be consistently spending time with him in this area.  The first days will be a lot to handle but give your dog lots of attention while he is in his gated area.  You should play with him, make sure he has toys, and a bowl of water in this area.  Make sure he feels comfortable and secure there.  Take him out for a while, let him explore the house but only while supervised and later when he is fully house trained.  If your leave your dog wandering around the home unsupervised you are only setting yourself up for potty accidents and frustration.  So remain consistent and always be bringing him back to his gated training area until fully trained.

    The actual training comes to play while in the gated training area.  The training really is on the part of the dog owner firstly.  Let me explain.  Your dog will have accidents in the home.  You have to train yourself to spot the signals of when your dog is about to go potty.  When you see this about to happen you have to interrupt him with a "No!" and quickly take him outside.  This is where the training is crucial.  Catching the potty about to happen, interrupting and quickly taking him out.

    Once outside you should be giving your dog the command "Go potty".  As soon as she has finished completing her business make a big deal about it and make sure she knows that you are very happy.  Complete enough of these catching the potty as they are happening, interrupt him and quickly take him outside and soon enough your dog will start to give you more indicators that he needs out.

    You should have an established feeding time because it will be easier to time a dog bowel movements.  At first you should plan on taking your dog out every 2 hours.  And yes a dog may not need to go out this often but you are getting the dog familiar with the outside and the more you can train in the beginning the less you will have to do it in a few weeks time.  You will be establishing a consistency and familiarity with the outdoors and potty and its well worth the sacrifice in the beginning. 

      When accidents do happen inside you should immediately clean it up using you pet cleaner.  You should not reprimand your dog or punish.  You failed to catch the dog in the process and punishing after the fact will have it own consequences and cause more frustration with other behavioral problems later down the line.  Just focus on catching the unwanted potty behavior, interrupt it and immediately take him outside.  Making sure you praise him afterwards for going outside.  If you focus on what you want for the dog to do and set up the environment to facilitate that and you remain focused and give him proper attention your dog will start to let you know when it needs out for potty.  If you follow these steps you should have a potty trained dog or puppy.