If you want to have a housebroken dog that will not relieve themselves inside your home, don’t use potty pads. Ever. A dog must have a clear picture right from the beginning that going pee or poop in the house is not acceptable and that instead relieving themselves outdoors is always the way to go! When a dog is taught it is an acceptable behavior to ‘go’ in the house, it is a hard habit to break. Harder even if you reinforce it with a potty pad as they will often associate other soft surfaces such as rugs and carpeting or even clothes, as acceptable for peeing on as well.

When cleaning such areas(or even some hardwood flooring) most basic cleaners won’t be enough as the odor is still present to your dog’s nose. This again just tells them this is an ‘okay’ place to eliminate.

Another problem that often occurs is the dog uses one pad for peeing, but won’t use it for pooping, so they end up going on the floor next to it. In another instance, lets say you have multiple dogs and one of them saturates one pad, but a few hours later needs another so you end up placing multiple pads and then more pads and so on and soon enough your entire living room is a doggy bathroom! Not a fun way to live.

If this mistake has already been made and you want to transition your dog to being fully housebroken there are a few basic things you can do:

1) Treat your dog like a new puppy and go back to ‘housebreaking 101’

2) This will sometimes entail hiring a dog walker to let them out if you cannot be there frequently

3) Get a blacklight and check for any and all urine stains.

4) Clean these areas with an enzymatic spray such as Nature’s Miracle to help eliminate the odors that will attract your dog back to these places

5) Sometimes it is too much of an uphill battle and it is better to just replace old rugs, bathmats and even carpeting.

6) Patience and consistency are two of the principles of any kind of dog training. Consistency will be incredibly important here!