How to Housebreak Your Dog in 7 Days (Revised)

by Shirlee Kalstone

Book Overview

In this revised and updated edition of the classic, must-have guide for every dog owner, pet expert Shirlee Kalstone presents her foolproof method for housebreaking your dog in just one week

Whether your dog is a puppy or getting on in years, whether your goal is to housebreak, paper train, or litter train, this practical, easy-to-follow plan will help you transform your pet into a dependable member of the household--in a way that works...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553382896
• ISBN13: 9780553382891
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.2" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

informative and realistic!

I purchased this book (and three others) to prepare myself and my fiance' for the arrival of our new puppy. This is the only book of the four I purchased that actually directly addressed how you are supposed to housetrain a puppy when you work and are not home with the dog all day. All the other books assumed you would be available every two to three hours to take the dog outside, which is, in my opinoin, very unrealistic for most people who work 8 hour or more days and can't hire a pet sitter to stay home with the puppy in their absence. This book provides detailed schedules for people who are able to be home all day as well as people who can't be with the puppy all day long, allowing you to develop a consistent, realistic program for your puppy regardless of your schedule. The book was a very quick read (I read it cover to cover in less than a hour), straight-forward, simple to read, and very understandable. The concepts and principles in this book seem as if they will be easy to implement. This book made me feel more confident that we will be able to work the puppy into our lifestyle (with a few minor changes) instead of having to overhaul our entire lives to be slaves to the puppy's bowel and bladder. I strongly recommend this book to other first-time puppy owners who, like us, want to "do it right" and are looking for strategies and solutions they can implement to raise their puppy to be a well-mannered, obedient, and loving dog.

This is ALL you need to housetrain your pup or dog!!

If you can make it through the first 24 hours, freedom from an unhousetrained dog will be yours! It REALLY DOES WORK! I had a dog that was a 1.5 year old, I mistakingly paper trained her first and she never stopped doing what she was taught- going inside on the paper! NOT A GOOD IDEA! A family friend recommended this book and within about twenty four hours she was house trained!!! Most people would have said that I would always have a problem with her, NO way! Two years later, she's remains PERFECTLY HOUSETRAINED! In addition to this amaziing success story, I recently loaned the book to someone who was having trouble house training her new puppy; within a few days- no problem at all! Buy it, it really is well worth the money!

Simple and Successful

This approach worked for our puppy (a Lab) as well. It's based on a few simple ideas, one of which is the puppy's idea of its "den", which it will scrupulously avoid soiling. It's you, the owner, who needs to understand what constitutes the puppy's notion of its den and use that to your advantage. Dogs, like most people, are creatures of habit, so that can be used too. Set up a watering schedule that will contribute to success. Also don't try to housebreak a puppy before it's old enough to have adequate bladder control. Still, you can make it to that point without too many accidents. The book details all this.Finally, remember Pavlov's dog. Dogs respond directly - they don't understand abstract thoughts. Start by repeating a word like "potty" over and over quietly while your puppy is relieving herself, then praise her. This will associate the word with the feeling of relief. DON'T USE THE WORD ABSTRACTLY like asking "do you want to go out and potty?" when you're in the house! (You can say "do you want to go outside?"). After "programming" your puppy about 100 times, she will pee on command when she hears the word. This will really pay off later when you're travelling, etc. The important thing is to understand that dogs take everything literally and directly and really only understand a few key words, your tone of voice, and your body language.Try to think like a dog - it will change your whole view of the world!

This is a step-by-step book and very thorough reading.

I have read other books regarding housebreaking and this is by far the best I've read. What I love most is that she describes different scenerios for the stay-at-home and working dog owners. I started seeing results after the third day! Truly an exellent book for anyone who has a puppy or an older dog having accidents in the home.

Taking the Heartbreak out of Housebreaking!

This book offers concise, yet thorough instruction and information on the best method to housebreak your pooch. Kalstone even includes information on paper-training, though she makes it clear that this is not the best method, and should not be considered as an intermediate step if one expects a dog to use the bathroom exclusively outside at any point in its life.The thing I like most about the little book, aside from the completely reasonable price (truly one of the best deals for your dollar in the world of dog-training books), is that she includes several sample feeding/exercise/elimination schedules that a person can tailor to one's own schedule. She also strongly advises and gives solid training information about crate-training, which when done properly, is one of the most humane and best gifts a human could possibly bestow upon a canine companion.If you're having a problem with "accidents" in the house, *this* is the book you've been looking for! And what a bargain! :)