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As someone who regularly house trains new dogs as a part of my day-to-day life, I know the frustration of losing track of things and suddenly having to clean up a mess in the house. As I talk about in my article, How to Potty Train Any Dog, the real mistakes happen with the dog owner or trainer. And after all my hard work, I am still human, so every once in a while I will end up missing a signal or losing track of time.
I think a part of successful housetraining is accepting that messes will happen, and making it easy for yourself to deal with. I actually have another full article about exactly this: How to Deal With Accidents While Potty Training Your Dog
However, while accepting that accidents are inevitable, there are still some really helpful ways to keep track of your dog and make these accidents fewer from the get go. Through years of house training puppies and adult dogs alike, I have gathered a few methods that really keep me on track and consistent with dogs who are still learning the “outdoors only” ropes.
1: Set Alarms
Alarms are so helpful when it comes to housetraining your dog and keeping track of things. For very small puppies, alarms might be as frequent as an hour, with an extra alarm in the night as well. Admittedly, alarms become even more helpful as dogs get better and better at their housetraining, because it’s easier to lose track of the longer potty break intervals. Four hours sometimes slips into an extra thrity minutes or more, and then we end up with accidents.
Alarms and timers are really helpful because you can set them for your dog’s current break interval right after each time they go potty. And they’re very convenient, because most of us carry around a digital timer with us throughout the day.
If you’re someone who has a lot going on and has to manage a dog who’s still learning appropriate potty manners, having alarms that will interrupt whatever you’re doing can be a game-changer not only for keeping track, but also in avoiding accidents all together.
2: Take Notes
Really, I mean take literal notes. As in, get a pen and a notepad and keep track of your dog throughout the day.
Jot down your dog’s current interval, and make note of when they last peed, pooped, ate, and drank water. If you want to go the extra mile, make note of their play schedules, and if anything was iffy about their potty breaks, like possible constipation or unusually frequent peeing.
Up until designing my own dog training planner pages (more on this later!) I had been using a bullet journal method for keeping track of dogs and their daily schedules. This is based on the Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carrol, which is a great book in general but also has really helped me in keeping track of training for multiple dogs at a time. While I like my new planner pages, the bullet journal style method still holds up, as I can keep track of anything and everything that could come up in a day, and all you need realistically is a piece of paper and a pen/pencil.
3: Use a Printable Tracker
When I started my dog training business and went full-time, my tracking method needed to change. I started handling a couple board-and-trains at a time in my home and had to keep track of the dogs under my immediate care, but I also had private lesson clients to think about, and remembering their progress when lessons would be weeks apart or longer, depending on the client and the schedule.
So, I started making my own trackers and pages, which I began printing and keeping in an old disc bound notebook. One of these is my potty training tracker, which has served me greatly since I originally began using it.
Our dog housetraining printable tracker has a simple and organized design that gives you spaces to note the name of the dog doing the training, their age, and current interval. It also has an event tracker portion that notes the date and time, what happened (a good potty break, accident, meal, etc.) and an area for notes on the event.
This notes area can be really helpful for future use if you know what made an event successful or unsuccessful. For example, if your dog had an accident you can mark that with the time and date, and note to yourself that it happened because your phone was on silent and your alarm failed; now you can make changes so this type of mistake happens less often, or not at all.
One of the reasons I also switched to making these printable pages is that I started training with other people. If multiple trainers are taking shifts with dogs to reach a goal (and get a short break now and then!), it is really important that everyone involved in training a dog is entirely up-to-date on progress and the happenings of the day.
This carries over for households with families or roommates, as well. Similarly to working professionally with multiple trainers, everyone in a household who is expected to contribute to the care of a dog should know what’s going on! It also can be helpful to be able to leave out for a dog walker or house sitter, to fill gaps you might not be able to if your notes are held captive in a notebook.
I designed this tracker from scratch, and have even provided printed versions of it to clients to use. Now I am making it available for free to our email subscribers to download and print for personal use. If you want to get this tracker and our other free printables, head over to our email signup page and get access to them all.
At the end of the day, keeping track doesn’t have to be complicated. There are a lot of ways to make housetraining a dog or puppy easier, from alarms to notes to housetraining printables. Find a way that works for you, and you’ll see how accidents are fewer and farther between.
