Has your family taken in a young puppy? If you are like most new puppy owners, you are are probably uncertain about how you will potty train your cute little puppy, and worried it may make a mess. It helps to know that dogs do not naturally soil the place where they live - their den. They prefer to do their business somewhere away from it. If your puppy has stayed with its mother for the first 2-3 months, it will have learned these basic tidy habits.

Some dog owners interfere with this natural habit. A dog that is chained up for lengthy periods may not have the option to leave its kennel, which is why a dog should be allowed to run free several times a day to help keep its living quarters clean. To house train a pup kept indoors, the first step is to limit its sleeping quarters to a small area that is the equivalent of its "den". It will naturally wish to keep that area clean. Some people use a crate for this purpose.

You can take two approaches to your house training from that point: training your pup to hold on until it can obtain relief outside, or teaching it to use a dirt tray inside. Either way, the main aim is to have the puppy relieve itself in an acceptable place, not just anywhere in your home as if it were the great outdoors. Personally I prefer training a dog, especially if it is a larger breed, to go outdoors, but this may not be practical if you live in an apartment situation, have no outdoors kennel or you are very busy or often absent.

If you can, take your puppy outside onto grass as soon as it wakes or soon after it is fed, and several times through the day. Every 3 to 4 hours is a practical guideline, beyond which the risk of an accident rises. Success should be praised. As this becomes a routine, the pup will eventually begin reminding you when it is time for it to go outside. Once it gets the idea it will be able to let you know when it needs to go outside at other than the routine times.

Expect it to take several weeks to reach this point. You will have some accidents, but whatever you do don't punish the puppy. If you reward positive behavior instead you will find it is a much more effective method for training dogs. A wise move is to have the puppy live in an area with a hard floor that is easily cleaned during this accident prone time. Your garage or mud room are ideal.

If you can, keep your puppy in a kennel or secure run outdoors during the day, with access to relieve itself away from its sleeping quarters. This way it will be asleep for most of its time indoors with you through the night. This will reduce the time you have to dedicate as a temporary "nanny" while it learns what to do. If you install a dog door that allows the puppy access to the yard, train the puppy to use it when required. This easier for you, and greatly speeds up the house training.

It's best if the "den" area where your puppy sleeps can be adjacent to this dog door. Obviously, free access outside should not mean freedom to roam beyond a safe yard.

Giving access to a secure run outside may not be possible for you. A dirt tray inside the house is the usual solution. Absorbent substances to use in your dirt box are readily available at pet shops to eliminate most of your odor concerns. You should place the dirt tray close to where the puppy sleeps but it must be clearly separate from its "den".

You must take the puppy to the dirt tray when it awakens and about 20 minutes after it is fed. You need to reinforce success with praise, until it gets the idea of how to use the dirt tray. This method is a little more taxing than taking the puppy outdoors, but you must be patient. Some trainers recommend a paper-training stage before using the dirt box, to better communicate the idea. This is simply the use of newspaper laid on the floor as an alternative to a dirt tray. A little "starter" scent from last time the puppy went left on the paper helps to communicate the idea.

The advantage of using paper is a broader target-zone, and paper is cheap and easily cleaned away. You gradually narrow down this area over a couple of weeks to just the dirt tray. Once the habit of using the dirt tray is firmly imprinted, you gain some freedom to move it step-by-step further away from the den or sleeping area, perhaps to a utility room or attached garage, where the family spends less time.

Your aim is to give your puppy more access to your home in stages, to get your puppy to treat your whole home as its "den", which it naturally wants to keep clean. It is smart to delay giving access to any dark or secluded corners too soon in case they prove a temptation before the habit to always use the dirt box is firmly imprinted. Your patience during this time will be rewarded by your puppy respecting your home as you want.