The first thing to remember is that this breed can take several weeks to potty train. (Females are normally easier) But if you follow these simple methods to the letter, your new rott should be just fine in a few short weeks or sooner depending on the dog's will to do the right thing, and your consistency.

I have outlined a few things to remember when house training your Rottweiler, these items should be used as a guideline for the training process. Remember that like humans, our canine friends have different personalities, quirks, and most importantly, they can "Reason" to some degree, well.........all breeds except for the Chesapeake Bay Retriever that it, (just kidding, LoL).
 

For the sake of this documentation, I will refer to the dog being trained as "She or Her"

• Make sure that you take your Rott outside 10-20 minutes after she has had anything to eat or drink, you should stay outside for a duration of 10-20 minutes, or until she goes to the bathroom. Coach her by telling her "Let's go Pee Pee" (or something along these lines)  make sure that you praise her and love on her if she is successful!!! This is very important to let her know that "This is the right thing to do".

• Do not let her eat or drink at will. Place her food and water down at set times of the day. This depends on her age of course. For example; an 8 week old pup should eat and/or drink every 2 hours or so in small quantities. Once you are sure that she will not go in the house, then you are ready to leave her food and water down at all times, or feed at set times that she is accustom to. (your purgative)

• Watch her actions carefully, for signs that she needs to go outside such as; winning, sniffing around the floor, going to the door that you take her out of to go potty, etc. It's better to take her out and have her not go then it is to ignore the signs and have her go in the house :-)

• Also, there are a great many training sprays that you can use to mark an area that you want her to go to, to relieve herself.

• If you catch her in the act of squatting, grab her up at that instant and tell her in your assertive, training voice, "No, Bad Girl!!!" (DO NOT HIT HER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! or allow others to hit or mistreat her!!!) all the while heading for the door! Once outside, coach her to go potty, and if she does go, praise her with love and kisses using  the "Play Time Voice".

• If you go to work (for example) you may want to create her. Most animals will not (**** where they sleep :-) though accidents do happen, and should be expected for as long as 8-10 months of age on rare occasions depending on the dog and the circumstances. Urinating in the home may occur for medical reasons or, simply due to a  bladder release brought on by over excitement.

• Also, at first you should try taking her outside alone (without other "older" dogs) sometimes puppies are distracted and will forget why they came out in the first place and just start playing.

• Never punish her for going in the house unless you catch her in the act. Puppies have a very short memory and attention span, they will not understand why they are being punished, and this could end up hurting your cause and delaying her progress, not mention destroy her temperament and will to work.

•  Last but certainly not least, BE PATIENT, FIRM and CONSISTENT. Both you and your dog will be glad you did.

We have found that in the vast majority of cases where the dog just doesn't seem to get the concept of relieving themselves outside, it is the owner that is normally to blame. Not as much due to their lack of knowledge, but more so, due to the lack of consistency, patients or both.

Mark Payne - webmaster