House training or potty training your Shih Tzu basically means
that you teach your puppy to relieve itself outside the house
or in a designated place specially assigned for this. Whenever
you think about training this breed you should keep in mind two
basic qualities of the Shih Tzu –
People often tend to get upset when all of a sudden; the dog
goes and relieves itself on your precious Persian carpet. You
should understand that the Shih Tzu would never know or understand
why one place is better than another is for relieving itself.
You should be able to tell the difference by praising it sky high
when it does it in the right place – which should ideally be outside
the house. Otherwise, Shih Tzu potty training could be best done
with the help of crating.
1. Do not expect that a Shih Tzu puppy will even understand
what you say before 15 weeks. If you have a puppy, which is
younger than that, be prepared to anticipate when it wants to
go outside and then try to take it out in time, consistently.
When he relieves itself, praise it a lot. The dog will soon
enough associate the relieving with the praise and be extremely
happy to oblige.
2. In the meantime, if you want to proceed fast with the Shih
Tzu potty training – ignore the accidents. It does not matter
how many times accidents happen, totally ignore them. Shouting
at your Shih Tzu will not work; you will rather make it so stubborn
that it will stop performing when you take it outside.
3. One great way to get into the Shih Tzu potty training pattern
is by taking the puppy out the first thing in the morning, and
then after each meal. A Shih Tzu puppy will feed every three
to four hours a day, i.e. around fives meals per day depending
upon the constitution of the puppy. Once the Shih Tzu becomes
as adult, you could cut the meal times to twice a day.
4. Proper diet is important not only for the overall development
of the puppy, but also for Shih Tzu potty training. If the puppy
has a weak stomach, then there is no way it will wait for you
to praise him when it goes outside – rather it will seeks to
relieve anywhere else whenever it feels the need.
5. The best way to get Shih Tzu potty training to succeed is
by being extremely persistent without any trace of anger, frustration
and/or exasperation. The Shih Tzu puppy should never associate
its training with unhappy feelings or it will take you a very
long time to have it trained.
Since puppy training can be a very big aspect in making your
choice, would it not be a better idea to try getting a trained
adult dog from a Shih
Tzu Rescue/Adoption shelter?
