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The 5 Minute Dog by Personable Pets Dog Training

#116 Wait, do we live here?

April 20, 2025 • Personable Pets Dog Training • Season 2 • Episode 116

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You know, one thing that surprises a lot of new puppy parents is how resourceful puppies can be when it comes to house training. You think you’ve got a pretty good handle on things—they’re not having accidents in the kitchen, they’re doing fine in the family room, you’ve got your eye on them most of the time. And then suddenly… there’s a mess in the guest bedroom or the piano room or the downstairs bathroom. And you're like, "How did this happen?"

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Well, here’s the thing that a lot of people don’t realize: puppies are smart, but they’re also working with a really simple logic. They learn where they’re supposed to go potty mostly based on routine, environment, and how they understand what is “living space.” So if you're hanging out in the kitchen all the time, cooking, eating, watching TV from there, the puppy starts to associate that area with being part of the living space, part of the place where they eat, play, sleep. And dogs naturally don’t want to relieve themselves in what they consider living space. It’s kind of instinctual.

But those empty rooms? The ones that we hardly ever go into? Like guest rooms, formal dining rooms, piano rooms—those are ghost towns to a puppy. To them, it’s like, "Hey, nobody comes in here. It doesn’t smell like people. It doesn’t smell like food. It doesn’t smell like activity. So this is basically a random outdoor area, right?" And that’s where you’ll often find little accidents.

So what can you do? First off, block access to those rooms if you're not actively supervising your puppy. Gates, closed doors, furniture rearrangement—whatever it takes to make sure they’re not sneaking off in silence into one of those areas. Because honestly, if they get used to going in those areas, it can become a habit that’s hard to break.

But that’s only part of the solution. Blocking access helps prevent accidents, but it doesn’t teach the puppy what those rooms are actually for. So here’s a little trick that works really well: start using those rooms a bit. Go into the guest bedroom and play tug with them for five minutes. Feed them in there. Bring in their bed or crate for a nap sometimes. Toss some treats on the carpet and let them sniff around. Even just sitting with them while you scroll on your phone can start to shift their perspective.

What you're doing is teaching them: “Hey, this room is part of our space. We live here. We hang out here. We eat here.” And once that clicks, they’re way less likely to go into one of those rooms and relieve themselves. It becomes part of their mental floorplan of “home.”

It’s not even that different from how dogs treat their crates. When a crate is introduced the right way—with food, toys, naps—it becomes a safe zone. The same principle applies to any room. It's just that we have to be a little intentional about it, especially with rooms we rarely use ourselves.

So if you’ve ever wondered, “Why is my puppy only having accidents in that one random room we never use?”—it’s probably because in their mind, it’s not part of the house. It’s like this weird neutral zone, and it feels like fair game.

And the cool part is, once you start changing how that room is used, the behavior changes, too. So block access when you’re not around, but also bring that room to life a little bit. Make it part of the home for your puppy, not just for the occasional holiday guest.