Common housetraining mistakes

If you don't seem to be making any progress with housetraining, check your methods. It's easy to make mistakes that don't seem important to us but have a big impact on a puppy.

Here the two biggest mistakes people make:

• Keeping your puppy in the yard, instead of in the house in her crate, makes house-training much more difficult. You're basically teaching her it's okay to eliminate anywhere and anytime she wants. So she'll go ahead and do so when she comes inside.
• Rubbing your puppy's nose in the mess, smacking her with a newspaper, and similar misbegotten advice can derail all your housetraining efforts. These punishing methods can make your poor dog too frightened to eliminate in your presence. If your pup is scared to go when you're around, she'll learn to hold it on walks and relieve herself only after you've left the house.

If housetraining is still dragging on and you can't figure out why, check with your vet. Your pup may have a physical problem, such as a urinary tract infection, that makes it hard for her to hold it.