Housetraining your puppy is more than just teaching him where to go potty. Housetraining includes good management—helping puppy not get “into trouble” by blocking access to temptation. For example: All the items that you would put behind locked doors for a two-year-old human child should be put behind doors for your puppy. In addition, trash cans should be inaccessible to puppies. Not only to prevent the trash from being strewn throughout the house, but also to protect your puppy from ingesting items that could be harmful. Clothes, shoes and other "smelly" human clothes should be put where puppy cannot get to them. The toilet paper cannot be torn to shreds if you close the bathroom door. Baby gates and barriers should be in place to prevent puppy from having unsupervised access to your home. If you are either watching puppy or have puppy in a safe place, it will be impossible for puppy to soil the carpet and eat your family heirlooms.Your interest in this article tells us that you are probably already aware that puppies tend to be “HYPER!” They have a ton of energy and they need to burn that energy up somehow. If you do not provide an acceptable outlet, they’ll come up with one of their own.Taking puppy for a walk around the block or through the park is a great way to exercise puppy. Talk to your veterinarian about how much exercise is safe for puppy at his age. A eight-week-old Yorkie may tire out walking to the corner. An eight-month-old Dalmatian may need a 2-mile jog! You also need to be sure that all vaccinations are up to date and puppy is protected from diseases.Another way to exercise puppy is to teach puppy to retrieve a toy. Retrieving is a game that allows the puppy to do all the running while you sit under a shade tree, drinking an iced tea! There are other games that will physically and mentally challenged your puppy. Games such as “hide ‘n seek” are a lot of fun for both you and your puppy. Hide ‘n seek can be played a couple of ways. One is to teach puppy to “hide his eyes” (stay) and then a family member hides and calls the dog, or you can have puppy “hide his eyes” and then hide a favorite toy for puppy to find and retrieve. (Until puppy learns to “stay” it’s OK to gently hold puppy in place while the person or toy is hidden. Also, always play hide ‘n seek with you hiding, and puppy finding. It would be ill advised to teach puppy to hide from you!) Hide ‘n Seek encourages good behaviors like come, find, and retrieve.

Don't ask “How do I get puppy to stop

Another commercial toy that can keep your puppy entertained for some time is a Buster Cube(r)—a large plastic toy with chambers in it that you load with dry food. As the dog rolls the cube around, it spits out a piece of food every once in a while. With this toy, a portion of your dog’s regular meal will be fed via the cube. You reduce the amount at “meal time” so as not to create a rolly polly puppy.Spend time teaching your puppy the basic commands of sit, down and come. That way when puppy is doing something unacceptable you can change the behavior into something more appropriate. An example: a dog that is responding to a sit command IS NOT jumping on your guests!The key to “Handling the HyperPuppy” is management. By preventing inappropriate behaviors, burning off excess energy, relieving boredom and teaching appropriate behaviors you too can learn to enjoy that bundle of fur and he can grow into that well behaved adult that you pictured when you decided to get a Puppy Pal!