Teaching a puppy to wee and poo outside is easier said than done, our puppy toilet training guide has the tips and tricks you need to have them going outside in no time.

Ideally, during the toilet training process you should leave your puppy alone for as little time as possible. Any accidents inside the house will delay training. If you do need to leave for a short time, leave clean newspaper in the usual toileting area. As soon as the newspaper has been toileted on, they&rsquo;ll not want to use it again so will probably go elsewhere.

An indoor kennel, puppy play pen, crate or similar can be used to confine your puppy to a certain area while you are gone. Line the floor with newspaper to help maintain the toileting training.

<h2>How Long Does It Take to Toilet Train a Puppy?</h2>

There&rsquo;s no set timeframe for toilet training a puppy as every dog is different. The more you stick to a routine the quicker you&rsquo;ll see results. If your puppy toilets outside of their toileting areas, it will delay their training.

Puppies don&#39;t have full bladder capacity until they are around a year old, but most dogs can control their bladder overnight by around 6 months old. Although it sounds like a long time, it won&rsquo;t feel like it as your puppy will learn more each day and the time between going to the loo will get longer sooner than you expect.

Puppy toilet training takes patience and perseverance. Never punish your puppy for toileting in your home, instead praise them for toileting in the designated areas. Use verbal cues to teach your dog where to go to the loo and keep the area clean. House training a puppy can take some time but keep in mind that they&rsquo;re learning bladder control, and their digestive systems are still developing.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.everypaw.com/dog-insurance" title="Link to Everypaw's Dog Insurance page">Everypaw&#39;s Dog Insurance</a>&nbsp;comes with 24/7 unlimited access to vets and vet nurses that can help with your pet&#39;s health, care, nutrition and behaviour. So you can rest assured your pup will be well looked after.&nbsp;

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Additional content provided from Vetstream&#39;s Vetlexicon Canis &ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vetlexicon.com/treat/canis%C2%A0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Link to Vetstream's Dog page">www.vetlexicon.com/treat/canis</a>

Vetlexicon is the world&rsquo;s largest peer-reviewed online clinical reference source. All our content is written and peer-reviewed by over 1,000 of the world&rsquo;s leading veterinarians, ensuring relevance, accuracy and quality.

References

Toilet training, or house training, means teaching a puppy to wee and poo outside rather than inside the house. Toilet training can start inside with the use of puppy pads or good old-fashioned newspaper. But the end goal is to train your puppy to go to the loo outside.

Puppy bathroom training can start as soon as you welcome your new bundle of fluff into their new home. They&rsquo;ll need to know straightaway where they&rsquo;re allowed to do their business. You can choose to toilet train outside in a secure garden from the start, or you can slowly build up to it using a particular toileting area inside.

Start by placing newspaper or puppy pads in the designated area. Whenever you notice your dog showing signs of needing the toilet, move them to the toileting area and use a verbal cue like &ldquo;wee wees&rdquo; or &ldquo;go do a wee&rdquo;. If they do, make sure to give lots of praise, or even reward your puppy - encouraging them to use that spot again. Clean the area as soon as they have used it to prevent unwanted smells and to encourage your puppy to go there again.

You may be wondering how to train a puppy to go toilet outside? Once your puppy is reliably using the newspaper, you can move the newspaper outside to encourage your puppy to toilet in a different location. Slowly reduce the size of the paper over time until you can remove it completely. It won&rsquo;t take long for your puppy to toilet on a new surface like the grass.

When training your puppy to toilet outside, make sure you let them out regularly and spot when they go to the door or signal that they need to go. It&rsquo;s also a good idea to give them extra time to have a sniff around after they&rsquo;ve been. If you bring them inside as soon as they have been to the toilet, they&rsquo;ll be reluctant to go as they&rsquo;ll start to associate toileting with the end of outside time.

Most importantly never punish your dog, even if your dog has an accident in the house - they have no sense of right or wrong! Your puppy will only toilet in an inappropriate area if they feel there&rsquo;s no other option. So, if you keep the toileting area clean, give them plenty of opportunities to go, and don&#39;t make a fuss if they get it wrong, they should never feel the need to go elsewhere.

If you need to clean up puppy wee and poo, use an enzymatic cleaner specially designed for this. If you run out of cleaner, you can also use a biological washing powder. This reduces the smell so your puppy will be less likely to toilet in the same place again. Temporarily moving the wee or poo to the desired toileting area can help to establish associations with toileting in that area.

<h2>How Do I Know When My Puppy Needs to Toilet?</h2>

When your puppy needs to go to the toilet they&rsquo;ll become restlessness, start to move around in circles, or head towards a location that they have previously toileted in. Generally, when your puppy is awake, they&rsquo;ll need to go for a wee every couple of hours. The following are other circumstances when your puppy is likely to need to go out:

<ul>
	<li>Within 20 minutes of eating</li>
	<li>When they wake up</li>
	<li>Shortly after a drink</li>
	<li>During or after an activity or period of excitement</li>
</ul>

If you give them plenty of opportunities to go the toilet and can recognise the signs of them needing to go, you&rsquo;ll be less likely to have accidents and have greater success toilet training your dog.

<h2>How Do I Toilet Train Overnight?</h2>

A puppy will need to go the toilet less overnight than during the day as they&rsquo;ll be less active, won&rsquo;t be eating, and will drink less. But a puppy&rsquo;s bladder is small, and they haven&rsquo;t yet learnt bladder control, so you&rsquo;ll need to let them out regularly.

Start off by setting an alarm and letting them out every few hours. You&rsquo;ll be able to gradually increase this time as they get used to the routine. Make sure you let them out last thing on a night before you go to bed and first thing in the morning when you get up.

<h2>What Should I Do When I Need to Leave the House?</h2>

How to Toilet Train a Puppy | Everypaw

How to Toilet Train a Puppy

All Things Pet Health and Care Blog | Everypaw

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The benefit values featured in the table may vary across the different levels of cover and will depend on the cover you choose. Please check your cover before purchasing. Be aware, for some breeds of dogs we do not provide our &pound;8k and &pound;10k Lifetime cover. 
 
All policies and features are subject to special conditions and exclusions of the insurers, please click the link to read about&nbsp;<a href="/Home/pet-insurance-policy-exclusions.html" title="Link to Everypaw's Pet Insurance Exclusions page">our policy exclusions.</a>&nbsp;You can download&nbsp;<a href="/downloads-2020/everypaw-policy-document.pdf" target="_blank" title="Download the Everypaw Policy Document for Cats and Dogs">Everypaw&#39;s Policy Document for Cats and Dogs here</a>, or if you are interested in rabbit insurance, our&nbsp;<a href="/downloads/everypaw-policy-document-rabbit.pdf" target="_blank" title="Download the Everypaw Policy Document for Rabbits">Policy Document for Rabbits is here.</a> 
 
Excess is applicable to all vet fees claims. When your pet reaches a certain age, the excess payable may change. The excess will be your set excess plus a percentage of your claim amount.

Cats, Dogs & Rabbits

Cats & Dogs

Dogs only

Vet Fees

Getting your furry friend covered shouldn't just come down to cost. There's a lot more to it than that, so take the time to do a pet insurance comparison. Think about their breed, the level of cover they might need, and what would be important to you. After all, insurance is there for both of you.
One of the best ways to do that is to compare cover levels. This will give you an idea of how much your pet insurance will cost, how much you can claim against vet bills, as well as the policy benefits. It's all about finding the Lifetime Pet Insurance that works best for you and your pet.

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Whether you are looking for a playmate for your pet or if your house is more like a dog, cat and rabbit smallholding, you need multi-pet insurance that works for you. Everypaw&#39;s policies are just that and give you a discount on every pet too. No matter how many pets you have, it&#39;s there for every single paw.

How Does Pet Insurance Work: Getting a Quote

Our pet insurance quote form takes just 3 minutes to fill out. Here&#39;s how it works:

<ul>
	<li>Select which type of pet you&#39;re looking to insure and enter their age, breed and sex</li>
	<li>Enter basic personal details about yourself including your email and home addresses</li>
	<li>Select your vet fees limit</li>
	<li>We&#39;ll give you a pet insurance price! And we&#39;ll show you what the cost is for the year, plus what your monthly instalments will look like if you choose to pay that way</li>
</ul>

Will My Pet Insurance Cover Pre-existing Conditions?

Ever found the urge to discover what the best dog breeds to train are or maybe you want to get to the bottom of your pet&#39;s worm problem.&nbsp;<a href="/Home/all-things-pet.html" title="Link to Everypaw's All Things Pet blog">Everypaw&#39;s All Things Pet blog</a>&nbsp;has the content to keep you informed.

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How to Help Cat Separation Anxiety

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For that extra peace of mind when your pets get up to mischief, there&#39;s Everypaw. Our pet insurance is for cats, dogs and rabbits, and every policy comes with unlimited 24/7 access to vet nurses and vets. So, if you ever feel a bit &#39;for pet&#39;s sake&#39;, know Everypaw is here for you and your pet when you need us most!

*Based on Everypaw claims data from February 2024 to March 2025

Why Choose Everypaw for Pet Insurance in the UK?

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Choosing the right pet health insurance isn&#39;t always easy. We know that. And we also know that a key part of deciding is knowing what&#39;s not covered. That way, at least there are no nasty surprises in terms of coughing up for bills that you thought were going to be taken care of by your policy.

So, here are a few of the main exclusions on our pet insurances:

<ul>
	<li>Treatment for any pre-existing conditions</li>
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	<li>Treatment for any illness that occurs in the first 14 days of your policy*</li>
	<li>Treatment related to vaccine-preventable conditions</li>
	<li>Treatment related to breeding, pregnancy or birthing</li>
	<li>Treatment on baby teeth if your pet is over 16 weeks when your policy starts</li>
</ul>

*Switching to Everypaw Pet Insurance? If you can prove your previous insurance runs up to the policy start date, we can waive this for you.

Please see our <a href="/Home/pet-insurance-policy-exclusions.html" title="Link to Everypaw's Policy Exclusions page">full list of exclusions</a>, our&nbsp;<a href="/downloads-2020/everypaw-policy-document.pdf" target="_blank" title="Download the Everypaw Policy Document">pet insurance policy document</a>&nbsp;and our <a href="/downloads/everypaw-policy-document-rabbit.pdf" title="Link to Everypaw's Rabbit Policy Document">rabbit insurance policy document</a> for further details.

Fingers crossed, you never have to! But if something does happen, we want to reassure you that claiming on your pet health insurance is hassle-free:

<ul>
	<li>Log in to our Pet Portal. This is the fastest way to start a claim and track its progress. If you need to make another type of claim, all the claim forms you need are in the Portal.</li>
	<li>Not registered for the Portal? you can <a href="https://www.everypaw.com/downloads-2020/everypaw-claim-form.pdf" target="_blank" title="Link to download an Everypaw claim form">download a claim form</a> and submit following the instructions on the form, but this can take longer than submitting your claim online.</li>
	<li>If you need to make a claim for Third Party Liability,&nbsp;please refer to the guidance in your policy documents.</li>
</ul>

For more information, head to our <a href="/Home/claims.html">Pet Insurance Claims information page</a>.

We know pets are just as much a part of your family as any human. So, we know how important it is to you that they&#39;re protected. Choose Everypaw for pet insurance in the UK and give yourself that priceless peace of mind.

We know things can be tough right now, with many people facing money worries. If you have such concerns, please get in touch with us, as we may be able to offer some options to help, which could include reducing your cover or increasing your excess.

If you wish to find out more and your eligibility for any options, please call <a href="tel:03445431009" title="Call Everypaw Customer Services and Claims">0344 543 1009</a>.

Deciding which pet insurance your furry bundle of fun needs can be tricky, especially if you&#39;re a new fur-parent. That&#39;s why here at Everypaw.com, we&#39;re trying to keep things simple. That&#39;s why we&#39;re all about&nbsp;<a href="/Home/lifetime-pet-insurance.html" title="Link to Everypaw's Lifetime Pet Insurance page">Lifetime Pet Insurance</a>.

Our Lifetime cover is available for your cats, dogs and rabbits. And if you&#39;re looking to cover your cat or dog, there&#39;s a range of cover levels to choose from. Lifetime covers your pet up to a set vet fee limit, and the limits reset for every year of cover.