Have you adopted a New Rescue Dog who is not yet House Trained? Maybe a Street Dog? Are you struggling to potty train an older dog and can only find resources for puppies? Then this article is for you. You can also find a free download below.
Why you might need to Potty Train your new Rescue
When we adopt a Rescue Dog of a certain age (not puppy) we often assume that they know their way around a house. However, this is not always the case. If you have like me street dog, then chances are they are not potty trained because they never had to be. They never lived in a house and everything is very new for them.
It might also be that the history of your new rescue dog is unclear – maybe you adopted a stray or they have never lived in a house or they never had a ‘normal’ routine where they could rely on their humans to take them out.
Or everything is simply so new that your dog is unsure what the routines are and what to do.
Whatever it is, there can be may reasons why this might be useful. This course was actually a ‘request’ from one of our adopters as most of the information online is only puppy specific. So, I hope you will find this useful and I will keep it as short as possible.
In a nutshell, you will learn how to potty train a dog of any age.
What’s Potty Training, anyway?
If you like me never had a puppy (as I always had rescue dogs) you might not be 💯 sure what potty training actually means.
Basically, it means your dog understands that they do their business 💩 outside and not inside the house. This could be on walks, in your garden (if you are comfortable with this) and to certain times.
You might will need to establish a routine first and help your dog understand that they regularly get the chance to go out and relief themselves.
In a shelter situation this is sometimes not possible of course when there are lots of dogs and only a few volunteers. And often the dogs use their own crates as bathrooms that get regularly cleaned. If you saved a puppy mill survivor, they might have actually never left their cage and won’t know about the concept of walks etc.
Managing your Own Expectations
Right, so you adopted a fully grown dog. This could be through a ‘simple’ rehome, where the dog is already used to live in a household. But his might not always be the case, for example when we adopt a stray, a street dog or a dog who has been in the shelter for a really long time. We often assume, that our new rescue dogs have already learned the basics – and even if they have, it’s a very new environment, new smells, new humans and new routine.
Your new rescue dog is probably really overwhelmed and stressed by all the changes and everything that is going on. So, please be prepared for accidents and for the first time being tough for your dog. I created a blog post about the 3-3-3 Rule for Rescue Dogs, it’s a rule of thumb of what you can roughly expect in the first 3 days, the first 3 weeks and the first 3 months with your new rescue dog. You can find the article here.
Related Resources: Understanding the Transition from Shelter to Home – what’s going on in your Dogs
So, please don’t get mad when your new rescue dog has an accident or finds it hard to settle or calm down. Take a deep breathe and just clean it up (I highly recommend getting an odour remover cleaning spray and for carpets or holstery, I like this one best).
Do I need this? Thinking Ahead
Your new Rescue Dog might already be house trained and you’ll not need any of this – congratulations! But by preparing yourself with the knowledge on how to potty train your new rescue dog (and by maybe having some puppy pads ready), you won’t fall into panic mode if it happens. You got this, you are prepared.
How to Potty Train your New Rescue Dog?
You can housetrain a dog of any age! And here’s how:
Some things to know: dogs often have a need to go and do their business after any event – especially when it was something really exciting. For your new rescue dog most things will be events at the beginning – exciting or scary. Your dog will have a full Stress Bucket and you will want them to have some time to decompress. Especially at the beginning when they had a long journey (when you adopt a dog from abroad) or a big change of environments (shelter to home). You also will want to do less with them at the beginning to avoid trigger stacking and keep them under threshold.
Related Resources: Your Dog’s Stress Bucket | How to Decompress Your New Rescue Dog | 5 Signs your Dog Needs Decompression | What does “Dog is Over Threshold” mean?
I highly recommend you work with ‘gated communities’ and manage their access to rooms. Just like a puppy you don’t want to get your new rescue dog overwhelmed by having access to the full house or flat right from the get go. Especially if they never lived in a house (street dogs) this can be overwhelming and scary. You can widen their access area once they feel more safe and secure and have learned household manners and what to do with all the freedom. Baby gates or flexible fences are a great way to split up spaces into accessible bits. It could potentially be dangerous to your new dog and also to your furniture and other items you don’t want to be chewed on. And you won’t have a clear eye on them and what they are doing when they are free-roaming – which is important when housetraining a dog.
Keep an eye on your dog! Learn to understand your dog and their behaviour. Dogs have routines – especially when they are looking for a place to do their business. Some of these (pretty obvious) signs are them for example looking around, sniffing, pausing, doing their ‘circles’ etc.. Learn what your dog does before they actually do their business.
If you adopt a young dog, then be aware that their bladder is smaller and they will need to go out more often as they don’t have the physical abilities yet to hold for really long (also if you adopt a senior dog!). When your dog is asleep you can relax but if they are active and running around a lot, then you will want to keep an eye on them.
You can teach and add a cue like ‘wee’ or ‘potty’ or ‘do your business’ or whatever you want and keep saying the word when you take them out. When they do their business – reward!
Set yourself a schedule and take them out! More often than you thought you would at the beginning and you can also do this to different times at the day. But you will want to provide your dog with the opportunity to relief themselves outside.
A lot of dogs (especially bully breeds) like to have their ‘privacy’ or only go potty on grass or even close to a tree or a bush. This can make life really tricky if you live in a city. Practice with your dog to also do their business on different grounds – and keep rewarding when they do, so your dog gets also confident enough to relief themselves when no park is around or when you travel somewhere and you are on a time table. The taught cue can help here a lot.
If an accident happens, don’t punish your dog! Clean it up thoroughly – so there are not any smells of ‘a toileting area’ left and your dog understands that this is NOT the place to go. When it happened and you see if afterwards – don’t punish, they won’t make the connection and your dog didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe your dog is not yet comfortable to be left alone or you missed their toileting schedule.
If you see your dog wanting to go inside – interrupt them gently and take them out to an area where it’s appropriate to go. Don’t shout at them, punish them or scare them! I also heard the horror stories of pushing your dogs nose in the poo – DON’T!!!
If your dog finds it hard to go toilet outside (often the girls might wait cause they don’t have the habit of marking everywhere), the be boring outside and simply wait with them. Sometimes the outside world is too exciting or scary, so simply stand with your dog on some grass and wait. When they go and relief themselves, reward.
This part of ‘my dog wee’s in my house’ should be a relatively short time – so please be patient ad calm and help your dog understand what is the wished, appropriate thing to do. If there’s a relapse – remain calm and access the situation of what happened (maybe something triggered your dog or worried your dog).
If you find this really difficult and think your dog cannot manage, then please do rule out any UTI (urinary track infections) by seeing a Vet.
Establishing Calmness!
One of the most important things you can teach your new Rescue Dog is Calmness.
I filmed a whole video about this, which you can watch here. In a nutshell, you will want to follow these three steps:
- Active Rest – let them sleep, uninterrupted sleep. Please avoid waking them, touching them or anything when they just sleep. Even when they look super cute and you just want to love them.
- Passive Calming Activities – think doggy version of an adult colouring book. They do something but it’s low arousal and shall help them wind down. This could be doggy chews like pig ears etc. (if your dog gets too excited with them, then use something else, here’s a selection of the natural chews my dogs like), a Lick Mat or an enrichment toy (treat dispenser dog toys etc). You can find plenty of articles, reviews and videos about these things on my Blog and on my YouTube Channel.
Related Resources: How to use a Lick Mat & Prevent Your Dog from Chewing it - Reward Calmness – catch your dog in calm moments and reward them calmly (your energy matters!). This could be a niiiiiiiice, some low value food (that doesn’t get them super excited) and/or a calm stroke.
For more tips on Rescue Dogs and how to settle them in the new home etc. please have a little scroll through the things I already put out in the Rescue Dog Section (you can easily filter for all tags) and if there’s something you’d like more info on, please do get in touch and let me know 😊
I also created this free download for you:
Recommended Resources:
Building a Relationship and Trust with your New Rescue Dog
Dogs Body Language | Body Language of an Anxious Dog | Body Language of a Relaxed Dog
Hope this helps 💖 I’d of course LOOOOOVE to see a picture of your new family member and hear your story!
English 
German