You might worry about how your dog could harm your grass and other plantings if you have a nicely landscaped yard. Dog pee and poop can cause damage to grass, flowers, and other plantings. This doesn’t mean a nice yard is incompatible with having a dog. One way to preserve your garden is to teach your dog to use a designated bathroom area in your yard.
Create A Doggy Bathroom:
The first step in teaching your dog to potty in a specific area of your yard is to create a designated bathroom area within your yard. You don’t have to create anything fancy, but it is essential to be consistent and select a location where you want your dog to go to the bathroom. Most people will choose an area of your yard far away from your patio and house and in a yard without grass or fragile plants. You may want to use gravel, woodchips, or another durable substrate for the area where your dog will go potty. This can prevent the ground from being damaged by dog urine and poop.
Help Your Dog Be Successful:
While you’re teaching your dog to potty in a specific area, creating a yard setup where your dog will be successful is essential. This means setting your dog up for success by only taking your dog out to potty while they are leashed to prevent your dog from having access to going potty in other areas of the yard. With practice, your dog will learn to potty in specific areas, but until then, we want to take our dogs to their bathroom areas when it’s time to potty.
Teach Your Dog Where to Go:
To teach your dog to potty in a designated area of your yard, you’ll want to have a lot of small pieces of treats that are of high value to your dog. You’ll also want to have a leash for your dog.
Step 1: Lead your dog on a leash to the area of your yard where you want them to potty.
Step 2: Cue your dog to potty if they know how to go potty on cue or wait in the designated bathroom area for your dog to pee or poop.
Step 3: When your dog goes potty in this designated bathroom area, praise and reward your dog with a treat.
Step 4: Repeat this process each time you take your dog out in your yard to potty leading your dog to the designated bathroom area and praising and rewarding your dog when they potty in that area.
Step 5: Soon, your dog will begin actively leading you to that bathroom area when you go outside for a potty break. When your dog is actively leading you to the bathroom area, assuming you have a fenced yard, you can take your dog out to go to the bathroom without a leash.
Step 6: Go with your dog as they are off leash out to the designated bathroom area. When your dog potties, give lots of praise and treats to reward your dog for deciding to go to that bathroom area to potty.
Reinforce Patterns
Dogs are creators of habits and benefit from repeated training patterns. The key to teaching your dog to potty on cue in a specific area is to reinforce your dog by building a pattern of going to a particular location when taken outside and being rewarded for going to the bathroom. Your dog doesn’t understand why you don’t want them to potty in your vegetable garden, but by rewarding your dog for going in the designated bathroom, you’ll build value for your dog in visiting that area of the yard when they need to go.
For dogs, behaviors that are rewarded are most likely to be repeated. After your dog is routinely rewarded for going potty in their new bathroom area, they will soon begin to self-direct themselves to that area anytime they need to go.
