Category: FAQ’s

BigBulldogs.com’s recommendations for successful housetraining your puppy is Prevention, Not Punishment!

Veterinary Exam: Urine/Fecal Check
If you purchased your puppy from us, we take great precautions to ensure that your puppy is free of parasites by sending the puppy home with parasite and worming treatment for the first two weeks. It is totally normal that puppies have parasites, especially when the live in an area where many puppies are, even though they have been treated, the ability to free them from these parasites is very diffucult because they pass them back and forth from one to the other by licking and eating feces….Sorry guys dogs don’t greet by shaking hands as we do. THEY GREET BY LICKING BOOTY…..haha

If you DID NOT purchase your puppy from us read this paragraph, If you did then you can skip to the next one. Remember that your puppy’s state of health will affect his ability to be successfully housetrained (housebroken). Make sure your puppy has a fecal exam within 72 hours after coming home from the breeder or animal shelter. If your puppy does not receive a “clear stool”, it is important to note that any physical condition that can impede successful housetraining ( such as cystitis, bladder infection, etc. ) must be properly treated. A fecal check will determine whether worms or internal parasites are present. (There are several types of worms that are not visible except under a microscope. Also, fleas can cause tapeworm.)

Feed Your Bully pup A High-Quality Adult Food
A consistent diet of a high-quality premium brand dry (kibble) puppy food is recommended. We actually use IAMS adult mini-chunk. Bulldogs have a tendency to grow very rapidly, necessitating less protein than normal pups in order to help prevent bone and joint growth problems. Avoid feeding your puppy table scraps or changing brands unnecessarily. If you should need to change your puppy’s food for any reason, do it gradually over a period of 4 to 7 days ( by overlapping both the old and new food together, until the food is phased out completely). 
Note: Feeding your puppy canned dog food can loosen his stool, making it harder to housebreak him plus that is where all the deadly contamination was found.

Close Supervision Is Essential
Close supervision is essential any time your puppy is not crated indoors. It only takes a few seconds for your puppy to have a house soiling accident, so watch for signs that your puppy may need to eliminate, such as sniffing the floor, circling, or running out of sight suddenly. A long line can be used to stop the puppy from suddenly sneaking off.

Confinement when Puppy Can’t Be Supervised
Crate training or area confinement is recommended for puppies and most adolescent dogs when left unsupervised alone in the house. If properly introduced and used appropriately, crate training is an efficient and humane way to prevent housetraining accidents as well keep your puppy safe when you can not watch him (or when you leave the house/apartment without him). The crate should not be used for excessive periods of time and should not be used as a punishment (although brief ”time outs” in the crate are fine). Sufficient daily companionship, interactive playtime and exercise are very important to all puppies and dogs. Note: Crate training and other forms of confinement must be balanced with sufficient exercise and companionship. Excessive periods of isolation can be very detrimental to your puppy, and can contribute to numerous behavioral problems including hyperactivity, destructive behavior, digging, self-mutilation, and excessive barking.

Determine Puppy’s Safety Zone, Grey Zone & Danger Zone
Keep a diary of your puppy’s urinating and defecating times for several days or more. Determine the minimum interval between elimination. Subtract 15-30 minutes from this period of time and that will be your puppy’s temporary “Safety Zone”. This is the duration of time he can generally be trusted to hold his urine after he is taken for a walk or has “gone” potty, provided he does not drink a ton of water during this time. Make sure however, that he is still closely supervised any time he is not confined to his crate or confinement area.

HOUSEBREAKING PART TWO

Frequent Access to Backyard, Or Taken for A Walk if fully Immunized Puppies need to urinate shortly after they eat, drink water, play, chew, or sleep. For most puppies over 10 weeks of age, that means somewhere between 5 and 10 times a day! Adolescent dogs (from 6 to 11 mos. Old) will need 4 to 6 walks a day. Adult dogs need 3 to 4 walks a day, and elderly dogs need at least 3 to 4 walks daily (incontinent dogs will need more).

Do Not Return From A Walk until Your Puppy Eliminates
If your puppy has been confined overnight to a crate, take him outside first thing in the morning (before he’s had a chance to soil indoors.) Be prepared to stay outdoors with him until he eliminates. (This could take from a few minutes to as much as several hours!) As soon as your puppy eliminates outdoors, offer him lavish praise. If you take your puppy back inside the house before he’s fully eliminated, he will surely have a house soiling accident indoors!
(Note: If you absolutely have to go back inside before your puppy does his “business”, crate him, then try taking him outside again every 15-30 minutes until he “goes”.)

Early Interactive Socialization With People Is Important
Early and ongoing interactive socialization with lots of friendly new people (including calm friendly children) is very important. If your puppy is not immunized sufficiently to be taken for a walk, make sure to have lots of new people visit your puppy in your home. You can also carry your puppy outdoors to public places to properly acclimate him to the sights, sounds and activities of the outdoors (especially crowds of people and traffic noises) soon after he has received at least two series of shots, provided he is not placed on the sidewalk or streets, and he is not brought near other dogs (or anywhere other dogs might have been).

Praise & Reward Your Puppy for “Going” Outdoors
Lavish praise, a trigger word (ie: “potty “, “get busy”, “business”, “bombs away”, etc.) Following his eliminating in the right place (backyard, or outdoors) will help you to communicate to your puppy that you are pleased with his behavior. Delayed praise is not effective, so witnessing him going in the right spot is important.

No Access to Inappropriate Areas to Eliminate
Many puppies and dogs prefer certain areas or surfaces to eliminate on, such as rugs, carpeting, etc. Keep your puppy away from risky areas or surfaces whenever possible. If your puppy suddenly runs out of sight (ie: out of the room), he may be looking for a secret spot to eliminate, so close doors to rooms where he may sneak a quick pee or poop.

Neutralize Urine Odors with Enzyme-Based Deodorizer
Should your puppy have a few houses soiling accidents despite your best efforts to prevent them, neutralize any soiled areas (carpet or floor surface) with a pet odor neutralizer a vinegar and water solution works best and will not harm your carpet or furniture. Avoid using ammonia –based cleaners to clean up after your puppy’s urine, as ammonia breaks down to urea, which is a component of urine.

HOUSEBREAKING PART THREE

No Water After 3 hours before bedtime.
Generally speaking, it is advisable to take up your puppy’s water bowl 3 hours before bedtime, unless he seems very thirsty or weather conditions are exceedingly hot. (But a couple of ice cubes are OK).

Eliminate Worms and Parasites
Contact your veterinarian if you suspect that your puppy has worms, coccidia, fleas, ticks, or other internal or external parasites.

Diarrhea Will Prevent Housetraining Success
Your puppy or dog cannot be expected to be reliable if he has diarrhea. Loose, liquidy or mucousy stools will hinder any housetraining success.

After-The Fact Discipline Does NOT Work!
Never ever discipline (verbally or otherwise) your puppy or dog after-the-fact for house soiling accidents that you did not actually witness. (Even if you should see your puppy eliminate on the floor or carpet, harsh physical punishment is never recommended.)

Never Discipline A Dog for Submissive Urination!
Submissive and excitement urination is completely involuntary, so never discipline your puppy for this. Eye contact, verbal scolding, hovering over, reaching out to pet your puppy’s head, animated movements, talking in an exciting or loud voice, as well as strangers/visitors approaching your puppy, may all potentially trigger your puppy to piddle. Disciplining your puppy for involuntary piddling must be avoided or the problem will simply get worse.

Humor
BigBulldogs.com recommends that a rolled up newspaper can be an effective training tool when used properly. For instance, use the rolled-up newspaper if your dog chews up something inappropriate or has a housebreaking accident. Bring the dog over to the destroyed object (or mess), then take the rolled-up newspaper… and hit Yourself over the head as you say the phrase, “ I FORGOT TO WATCH MY DOG, I FORGOT TO WATCH MY DOG!”

I am trying to housebreak my pup but he keeps “going” on the same spot on the carpet!
Never forget your dog’s incredible sense of smell! You can scrub until the tell tale spot is long gone but your pup can still smell it. You must eliminate that scent with one of your own. Keep a pump bottle of white vinegar close by through the housebreaking process and when the enviable accident happens, do your final cleaning with that common vinegar (always spot check surface to be sprayed to make sure the vinegar does not adversely affect the surface). Don’t forget that you can use this trait to help your training. Use a piece of newspaper to absorb residual urine before you use the vinegar, then take this paper to the spot in your yard where you’d like your pup to “go” and weigh this down with stones, when you walk your pup, bring him to this site and praise him lavishly when he performs. With consistency a pup will learn to use a specific area and the rest of the yard can remain clean. The vinegar also works for when your pup hits the wrong spot in the yard.

What is the quickest way to pottie train my dog?
Here is the three step program, it doesn’t get any easier than this!

Step 1.
Your dog must learn where he or she must go to the bathroom. Using a crate can be very helpful in this case, by bringing your dog in at night and having him/her sleep in their crate can give you the opportunity to take your dog/puppy outside on a regular routine to teach them that going outside to go pottie is a good thing, you may also use this same technique during the day when you just don’t have the time to watch them while they are in the house loose. Take your dog to the same door each time he or she needs to relieve themselves, make this a normal routine on a daily basis, after any nap, after any chewing, after any water or food, after any play time and most important each morning and evening. Decide where in your yard your dog will relieve themselves, take your dog to that spot each time it is needing to go pottie, when it goes praise it.

Step 2.
Your dog must learn to signal at the door. Take your dog to the door you have been using to let them out and do not open it until your dog shows you some sign that yes he or she needs to be let out and to please open the door, any type of sign should be excepted at first, but you can build it to be a bark, cry or scratch at the door.

Step 3. 
Set your dog up to fail. Take 20 or 30 minutes a few times each day to set your dog up, put your dog on a leash or the remote collar after it has woke up from naps or sleeping times, after playing or chewing and most important after eating time. You must allow your dog to start to make the mistake before you can correct your dog, if your dog does not go to the door that you would like he or she to go out to go pottie than wait until he or she tries to go pottie in the house, at the time your dog tries to relieve themselves MAKE YOUR CORRECTION and TELL your dog NO, take your dog outside and wait until he or she goes pottie, THEN PRAISE your dog. 

Todd Howard and BigBulldogs.com reminds you that a well trained Bully = a happy owner. You must initially invest the time effort and energy necessary in order to reap the years of pleasure that your Bully will provide. Happy Training…………

Growth development problems often plague Bulldogs. For starters, we recommend a low protein adult food for all of our Bulldogs over 8 weeks of age. Bulldogs have a tendency to grow very rapidly therefore causing many unwanted problems with their hips and joints. It is very important in the first year to keep their weight and play properly managed. Early joint damage could lead to osteoarthritis. Irregular bone growth is often a common problem in Bully during these growth phases and they usually grow out of them around 1 year of age. Hip and Elbow dysplasia are often genetically specific to the Bulldog breed but can be enhanced by slippery floors, over exercising, jumping and being overweight.

If your puppy begins to limp or show lameness, do not allow any surgery to be done until he has completely stopped growing. This usually is around 18 months of age. Many times I have seen pups limp as favor one leg or the other during this growth phase. In the past I had a customer call me and told me the vet wanted to do surgery and place a pin in one leg to lengthen it. I told them to do nothing and wait. The leg became perfect within 3 months and the vet lost a customer. My vet Dr. Butchko always says to wait and see after he stopped growing. So don’t panic. I have never yet had any bulldog have a hip or elbow problem long term.

OCD and Hip Dysplacia is incredibly rare in bulldogs and is very often mis-diagnosed in the breed. Due to the naturally very shallow joints the bulldog is sadly very prone to arthritic changes which can occur at a very young age, especially if as a puppy the dog underwent very rapid growth or was over weight or over exercise during this period. Sadly we hear of lots of puppies supposedly diagnosed with OCD or Hip dysplacia and in most cases this is not the case at all.

The breed has naturally shallow elbow and hip joints and young bulldog hips are very loose as the adult dog relies heavily on muscle to hold the joint in place. In many cases the growth rate is so fast the long bones grow at different rates in the fore legs, and elbows in particular will show up as dysplacic on x-rays taken under 18 months old, in most cases the bones will level out as the growth phase comes to an end.

Dysplacia diagnoses should not be taken as red until the dog is at least 18 months old and surgical intervention should never be considered until the growth phase is over, even then it’s more likely that the dog simply needs drug management to deal with the arthritic changes in the joint which in most cases are the result of the rapid growth as a puppy.

References: http://www.bulldogrescue.co.uk/health.htm