Can We Persevere?

If you have gone through the exhausting and extremely frustrating journey of house training a puppy then you know just what my state of mind is at this moment in time. People have many ways of accomplishing this monumental task. Since I have house trained three dogs and am on my way with number 4, I will enlighten you with my way of doing it. I have a couple of mantras when it comes to puppy training. One is, "You pay now or you pay later." Do the work in the beginning or pay mightily later with bigger problems. And the other mantra is simply, "Persevere."

I am extremely over the top with the whole process. I drive everyone in the household crazy including the puppy himself. I do not use puppy pads. Not that I have anything against anyone who likes to potty train that way, I just don't prefer to do it that way. Here is my theory... I never want my dog to think that it is ok to potty in the house. Never. Now, the problem comes in at this point. To accomplish this goal, you must take the pup outside every 15 minutes WITHOUT fail. And, if he is really active, then you have to take him out every 5-10 minutes. Of course, if he is asleep then you get to take a break from it. Otherwise, you're on "puppy patrol".

I have a new best friend in this endeavor.....

Even with the most rigid of schedule and best of intentions, there will be accidents. Unfortunately, it is inevitable. Now, I have tried everything, including the homemade cleaners. This is the best I have tried. It is my trusted "friend" in the lofty goal of making my pup 100% trained.

How is Dash doing in his training, you ask? Well....some days are better than others. But, he is starting to get it. This whole process will gradually get less and less rigid as he grows, but will continue in some fashion until he is about a year old. And, yes we will persevere.....because beagles are notoriously difficult to potty train. Nevertheless I will accept nothing less than a 100% potty trained beagle. Say a prayer for me, will ya? :)