How to Housebreak a Puppy With a Clicker

Housebreaking consists of managing your puppy's behavior and teaching your puppy the appropriate places to go. We want to positively reinforce your puppy for going outside—the more we reward a behavior—the stronger the behavior becomes. Rewarding behavior requires excellent timing—and there is no better training tool to improve your timing than a clicker, a small box with a strip of metal inside, that when you push down, makes a clicking sound. In this article I will teach you how to housebreak your puppy with a clicker.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Clicker
• Crate
• Leash
• Collar
• Treats

1. Start by having your puppy close by and some treats ready along with your clicker. We are going to pair the sound of a click with a treat. Click the clicker, and then quickly give your puppy a treat. Repeat this process over and over until your puppy gets excited at the sound of the clicker.
   
   This is called classical conditioning, pairing the sound of the clicker with something positive like food. By repeating the process over and over, your puppy will associate the sound of the clicker with food.

2. Once the clicker has been classically conditioned with food, you can start to use the clicker to shape your puppy's behavior. For instance, if you asked your puppy to sit, the second your puppy's bottom touches the floor, you would click in and give the treat. The sound of the click happens the instant the behavior occurs. You are now using operant conditioning to shape your puppy's behavior. Repeating this process will make the sit command stronger and stronger—and your puppy will respond better each time you practice.

3. Now we can use the clicker to reward your puppy for peeing and pooping outside. The clicker is an excellent tool for housetraining, because it helps you communicate to your puppy the second they are doing the right behavior. Housetraining often becomes difficult because the puppy is confused. By using the clicker it will help clear up the confusion and speed up the housetraining process.

4. Once you have started using the clicker to housetrain your puppy, show everyone in the house how to use the clicker and make sure they are being consistent with the training. Everyone in the house has to be consistent in order for the housetraining to be successful.

Tips & Warnings

• Get my free mini course: "7 Biggest Housetraining Mistakes and How To Avoid Them" (see Resources below).
• Be patient.
• Never train when you are stressed or tired.

Resources

• 7 Biggest Housetraining Mistakes and How To Avoid Them