my boyfriend and i want to get a puppy soon and even though i've had dogs before i've never had to start from scratch with the house training because they've all been older dogs. i'm worried about how hard it will be. i plan to do crate training because that seems like the way to go.

who else has had a puppy?
was housebreaking easy/hard?
any tips?

It's not hard, it's just a lot of cleaning up of accidents. Take it outside at regular intervals, especially after it eats, and praise it when it goes where it's supposed to. Don't bother with puppy pads or newspaper and stuff, that just tends to confuse them. If it has an accident, don't punish it because then it will think that it's in trouble for going to the toilet, not going in the wrong place and it will develop anxiety and maybe make it worse. You just have to be really good about taking it out, like every half an hour even.

see, this even confused me. i was wondering how dog is supposed to learn to go outside all the time when some of the time it is ok to go inside. good to know.

it isn't too hard to train pups. one of my dogs will poop outside. the older one is shy, so he goes on the puppy pad still. we have to hide it behind the couch. so, i still keep puppy pads inside while i am at work or gone. they use them. they do have accidents every now and then. and pinkerton will pee in the bath tub. he has no manners when it comes to peeing. just pooping. hahaha.

It is not difficult if you tell yourself you need to have patience. I am too currently raising a puppy, and he is now 8 months old. He won’t have any accidents in the day when I have to keep him in the bathroom, but will in the mornings when I want to sleep in and he doesn’t he will. He signals me by scratching at the front door to go outside which I encouraged since the first time he started it to let him know its ok to let me know he has to go outside. So that is key, to both communicate by a signal together and it makes things move a lot easier. He is still learning on waiting, cause he will signal me when I am in the middle of eating dinner, and I ask him to wait and he ends up going. But now he is to the point where he only goes by the door, so he knows he needs to go outside to do his business. But yes, please do not use those pads, I never liked them either.

__________________

--
At night wishful goddess,
At night, she'll work the hardest
At night disco goddess,
At night, the witch go gahhhh!!

Check out Broken Hymen Web
http://brokenhymen.holelive.com

it just takes a few days. be prepared to take a few days off work to look after him/her. they need constant attention for the first few weeks. which i have to say is much better than children who need constant attention for like 10 years.

You tell your puppy to wait to use the toilet? That's horrible, imagine someone telling you to wait when you need the toilet!
With our dogs, we just leave the back door open when were in the house and they tend to just go out and do thier business. It was hard training them at first, but thier wee is barely a puddle and thier poop is like a rabbit dropping so its not that bad!
The only time our dogs mess inside now is if they are unwell during the night or something.

There are plenty of times when a human has to wait to use the toilet. Everyone, puppies and children, has to learn how to wait a bit, if not, they end up needing to pee constantly and not being able to hold it when they have to. If the puppy really can't hold it anymore, it just goes inside anyways.