Regardless of what some may claim, dog trainers cannot teach potty training, only give tips on how to help with the (sometimes long and frustrating) process. Obedience training will help with improving communication between owner and dog and establish leadership, but will not totally solve potty problems.

My tips for owners in the potty training trenches are:

•  Make sure you regularly take your puppy outside, especially after eating and praise your puppy like crazy every time they successfully potty outside

• For adult dogs still having accidents inside, check with your vet that your dog does not have any underlying health conditions

• Never scold or punish your puppy/dog for an accident inside. What’s done is done. Scolding or punishing can make the problem worse and cause the puppy/dog to hide accidents.

• If living in a house with a backyard, avoid picking up poop in the backyard as long as possible and if your puppy/dog poops inside, pick it up and put it in the backyard before cleaning the spot with an odour eliminating cleaner. This helps the puppy/dog associate pooping with something to do outside by using their sensitive sense of smell as a trigger. 

• For more tips, you can listen to this episode of the Beyond the Leash podcast.​

There is no “best” age to train a puppy or dog and there is absolutely not a limited window of time to train. 

The earliest age to start is around 14 weeks, after the puppy has had their second round of vaccinations, but there is no upper limit of age. There are pros and cons for both starting training as early as possible or waiting until the puppy is a little older. Younger puppies don’t have bad habits to unlearn but may not have the attention span required for training sessions. Older puppies and adult dogs may have more bad habits to unlearn but have a much longer attention span. 

You can listen to this episode of the Beyond the Leash podcast for more in depth discussion on this topic.

Dogs, much like people, each have their own unique personality. Just like some people love to go out and meet new people every night and spend time in large groups while other people prefer to stay at home by themselves and read a book, some dogs love meeting new dogs and people and others don’t. 

Some dogs may never like other dogs or people not in their immediate household. And that’s ok! Trying to force a dog to socialize and become ok with other dogs or people never works and usually makes the problem worse.

Through obedience training dogs who aren’t the biggest fan of other dogs or people learn that it’s ok that they exist, and build confidence that their owner will not force them into any unwanted interactions. It’s much better to have control in social settings than to force a dog to socialize when it doesn’t want to.

The quickest and most effective way to solve excessive barking is the use of a bark collar in the specific situation where your dog excessively barks. If your dog barks the entire time spent in the backyard to the point of neighbours complaining, you only put on the bark collar when your dog goes out in the backyard. If your dog excessively barks on car rides, you only put the bark collar on in the car. 

There are three main types of bark collars on the market: vibrate, citronella, and static. Vibrate and citronella collars may work or temporarily work for some dogs, but often quickly lose effectiveness and the excessive barking returns due to the correction method not being enough of an annoyance for the dog. For the vast majority of dogs, static bark collars are required to quickly and permanently solve the unwanted behaviour.

I recommend the PetSafe basic bark control collar. It’s one of the least expensive on the market, from a reputable brand, and is triggered by the vibration of the dog’s vocal cords rather than sound. It can be purchased on Amazon here.

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See above about bark collars. Usually, getting rid of the bark stops the escalation. Combined with obedience training to learn to communicate with your dog and building the dog’s confidence in social settings and the aggression almost always disappears. 

I also always recommend muzzle training dogs who have a history of aggression for the safety of other dogs and people, the owner, and the dog itself.

I am a balanced trainer. This means using a system of both corrections and rewards to communicate with your dog to stop unwanted behaviours and reinforce wanted behaviours. I do not rely on/bribe with treats or use markers.

Corrections are very quick and never painful and are never associated with the collar, the leash, or the owner and are always accompanied with praise. Nothing negative ever comes out of the owner’s mouth: word or tone. Everything spoken to the dog is a command in a happy tone or praising the dog. This causes the dog to associate the correction with their behaviour and stops the unwanted behaviour. 

Rewards are constant. The majority of rewards the dog receives is through verbal praise and touch praise (petting). Food rewards are the “jackpot” and used for perfect execution of a command. For example, every time an owner asks their dog to sit, the dog gets praised, but an immediate, perfect sit gets a treat, telling the dog that every sit was good, but the best one and the one to replicate was the sit where a treat was rewarded. 

I also teach one command response. I only expect my dog to be perfect for a half hour to an hour a day, the rest of the time my dog is allowed to run around and be silly. But for that half hour to an hour, my dog needs to listen to me like a soldier. If the owner commands sit, the dog needs to sit and the command is not repeated. This becomes life saving for commands like stay and recall. If your dog doesn’t listen to you on the first command, they don’t know the command, and if they’re running across a busy road, it’s too late if the dog only listens the fifth command.

My training uses correction collars, a standard nylon 6 foot leash, and small training treats. No harnesses or gentle leaders. No retractable leashes or leashes with extra attachments or sections made from bungee cord. 

Owners have the choice between one of three correction collars: a metal prong, a plastic prong, or a martingale collar. I can advise which may be the right collar for your dog, but it is ultimately the owner’s decision. For metal or plastic prongs, I only use small link unless the dog weighs over 110 pounds.

I may require a dog to wear a bark collar and/or muzzle if there is a history of aggression.

The short answer: No. 

The long answer: Like any tool, in the wrong hands someone could unintentionally hurt their dog using a prong collar incorrectly. Gentle leaders, no-pull harnesses, and martingale collars (the least intrusive type of correction collar) often advertised as tools to stop dogs from pulling and used by many all-positive trainers can also harm dogs if used incorrectly. There’s no such thing as a no-pull harness, harnesses are designed for pulling and even with the leash clipped to the front does nothing to stop a determined dog from pulling. Gentle leaders and similar products can cause whiplash. Martingale collars, which are actually correction collars even if not always used for that purpose, if not fitted properly act the same as a regular, flat collar and put pressure on one part of the dogs neck (often the trachea).

Good quality prong collars from trusted brands like Herm Sprenger and Titan have rounded edges so will never dig in when corrections are correctly applied. When fit properly, the collar will not rotate on the dog’s neck and cause irritation. 

You can listen to more on the subject on this episode of the Beyond the Leash Podcast.

Like anything in life, you only get out of training what you put into it. I give my clients homework after every lesson and all I ask for is 30 minutes a day. Put in the time and you get the results. Only put in half the time and only see 50% of the results.