We begin the housebreaking process by using the Indoor/Outdoor Potty Park system by Loobani. It is a plastic tray with artificial grass on top (pictured above). We provide this Potty Park system to our puppies at around 3 weeks of age. They quickly learn to go there to relieve themselves. By the time they are 6 weeks old they rarely potty anywhere but on the Potty Park. If you live in an apartment or will be gone for hours at a time, you might want to consider purchasing something like the Potty Park. You can always replace the grass pad with a disposable pee pad for easier clean up. The Potty Park we use can be purchased on our shopping page.

We recommend crate training a very young puppy. If a puppy is given too much freedom it will be confused and potty all over the house. This complicates the housebreaking process (you can read more about this on the Crate Training page). Remember that your puppy will need to go out to potty first thing in the morning and within 15-20 minutes of eating. Come up with a single word that will be the signal word for going potty. Say it when you take your puppy out to potty and again when your puppy relieves himself. Cotons are very intelligent dogs. They catch on quickly. 

We found the video on the left on YouTube.  Their suggestions are similar to the way we do thing.  We use wire crates and an X-Pen to create the Puppy Play Den.  We've never toy fed but it might be worth a try. Cotons tend to be fast eaters and toy feeding will force them to slow down. When we keep a puppy for ourselves we use the Puppy Play Den idea until the puppy is 12-14 weeks old.  Then we place the Potty Park in the kitchen under a chair next to the doggie door.  As soon as we see that the puppy has figured out the doggie door, the Potty Park disappears and true housebreaking begin.