The single best way to house train your dog? Get a doggie door. Now I realize not everyone can have a doggie door in their house or apartment, I am just making a statement of fact. We have had three dogs now for almost a decade and they have never gone to the bathroom in any of our homes. Why? Doggie door.

But lets go under the assumption you can't have a doggie door right now, so what do you do? The next best thing is crate training. A crate may seem very cruel to you, I mean locks up their dogs at night, how can you possibly do that to your best friend! Easily.

In our house one dog stays with us in the bedroom (under the bed), the "safe" place for the other two are their kennels or crates. You see it's like their own dens, a place of comfort...a safe place for them. I happen to believe that keeping a dog outside simply because you didn't take the time to teach them not to go to the bathroom in your house is cruel to a social animal like a puppy.

Just look at it this way, house training is teaching your dog the specific behavior of going outside to use the bathroom, using a crate is by far the most successful way of teaching this behavior short of installing a pet door.

First and foremost use one word or phrase. It might feel weird saying it over and over again, but it truly helps. So whether it's "potty", "tinkle", "bathroom"...pick one and stay with it. BTW try not to use the word "go" with it. You'll probably be using go in other ways and it might confuse the younger dog.

If you feed your dogs in the morning, do it before they go out to use the restroom. The food will aid in the process. Otherwise take them out and praise them when they do go. They will learn that going outside and going to the bathroom makes you happy and they want to make you happy. But most importantly at this point is learn their schedule...about how long after they eat do they need to go?

Now if you are putting them in the crate or locking them in the kitchen with the baby fence because you are working, you might want to consider feeding them after you get home from work.

A pup will poop anywhere from 20 minutes to 1 hour after it has eaten a meal. It's important that you try and feed them at the same time every day. Twice per day is best, but if you are working once is fine. Or if they go in the morning give them a little bit to hold them over.

Always remember to take the food up after 6pm, water up after 9pm, this way you know your dog will be pretty much "empty" by 11pm when it should be taken out for the last time. Yep. Puppies are like babies...they don't always go before you want to go to bed.

* On a side note with crate training, puppies will cry. A lot. Put an loud clicking clock by their cage, it worked for us. Someone said it was like a heartbeat for them. I bought it.

A crate is NOT simply a cage for storing your pet. Crate Training is however about confinement and control. Once they have shown you that they can go out on their own (dog door) or learn outside is the place they can go, you can actually start leaving the cage open. But that will be a while...don't be in a rush or you'll regret it.

So if these don't work out for you, you might want to take a look at the "Secrets to Dog Training" to get more indepth proven techniques that work.

Lastly if you take anything away from this, make it this point. Don't be one of those stupid people that rub their nose in it. All this does is hurt your trust relationship with your dog and btw it's not healthy. DON'T DO IT!