Feed a single diet during house training and don’t vary your dog’s diet until your dog is reliable in the house. Digestive upsets can lengthen the training process.

Take your dog or puppy out periodically throughout the day and as soon as your dog has finished a meal, ten minutes after drinking, after each play session, as soon as the dog wakes up from a nap.

Take the dog or puppy to the exact potty area. Praise for good potties in appropriate places.

Never discipline for an accident unless you catch the dog or pup in the act. Pick puppies up, taking them straight outside to the potty area where you put them down. Take adult dogs by the collar and rush them out to the potty area. Praise the dog for even standing in the potty area.

Never return a dog to the scene of the accident. No matter how much you scold, yell, or act upset, your dog will NOT understand why you’re angry. Their guilty looks are only a response to your demeanor.

Never let a dog see you clean up messes. Crate the dog or place it in a different room and then clean up.

Always use or white vinegar and water with baking soda or products made to remove urine to clean up messes. Using other products leaves scent behind and may encourage the dog to use the same spot again.

Remember that any accident is your fault. Your dog cannot open the door and may not have learned to ask. Be on your toes to prevent accidents.

PRAISE and REWARD good behavior. Ignore accidents unless caught in the act.

• avoid use of force.
• initially, eliminate stressful stimulus.
• avoid face to face confrontations.
• If your dog does trust someone, use that person to build the dog’s trust in other people; if the object of the dog’s trust trusts some other person, then the dog may also place its trust in this person. Have the person your dog trusts shake the new person’s hand and smile and chat with the new person while neither person focuses on the dog at all.
• If you need to take the leash of an untrusting dog, always have the trusted person put the leash on the dog and hand the leash to you. The dog will recognize that transfer and it will help build trust.

A dog who jumps up on people is one that is out of control. This dog is a threat to people’s safety, particularly where children and the elderly are concerned. Dogs jump for a couple of reasons. The first is a joyful greeting jump. The focus of the jump is to gain access to the person’s face. Dogs learn to identify people by their breath as well as their body odor. Dogs also associate human communication with our faces, thus dogs jump up to be near our faces for greetings.

When your dog greets a stranger, have him sit for attention, then ask the stranger to bend down to interact with your dog. Your dog receives no attention until he or she is sitting quietly–no vocal greeting, no eye contact, no petting, no acknowledgement of his or her dog’s presence. The stranger rewards your dog by greeting him or her when your dog is sitting quietly and calmly.

If your dog is a chronic jumper and will not sit appropriately, then other measures to ensure people’s safety are needed while you work on your dog’s sit stay. Until the behavior is under control, introduce your dog to people on lead wearing his or her training collar. Your dog is allowed to approach for the greeting and is asked to sit. If your dog jumps, give a strong correction and say “OFF!” at the same time. Place the dog in a sit and reward for the sit, even if the sit is only a couple of seconds long. If you consistently only reward for the sit, your dog will eventually get the idea.

If your Rottweiler is jumping on you in greeting, an extended arm with the palm out in the traditional “stop” position accompanied by a good firm “stop” command usually halts even totally untrained dogs in their tracks. Follow that by a “goooood dog” and then walk past your dog. After your dog settles down, then you can greet your dog. If your dog persists and refuses to OFF or SIT, you may need to use more forceful means to prevent an injury. At the same time your dog launches him or herself for the jump, raise your knee to a height where it will catch your dog hard in the chest and say “NO! OFF!!” Ask for the sit and instantly praise a good sit. This method means you may have to stop what you are doing and praise or correct, but that’s what owning Rottweilers is all about. This method works; the intelligence of your Rottie probably only requires you to do this several times before your dog begins to mind his or her manners. If you’re thinking there’s an awful lot of training needed and you’re wondering how you’ll find the time, you’re right: There is an awful lot of training required and you’re going to have to find the time and spend the time. Well-trained Rottweilers aren’t born, they become that way because of the time their owners spend on them and with them.

When people hear the term “house training,” they automatically assume potty training is being discussed. House training is actually training for the behaviors you find acceptable in your house and includes potty training. Ten rules of potty training are found in the next several pages.

The first step in house training a dog is to determine what is acceptable in your house and what isn’t. You need to develop one set of rules for the household and everyone must stick to them–dogs are not adept at discriminating between the rules of one person and another. Among the many questions that need answering are:

• Is it okay for the dog to sleep on the furniture? Dogs with dominance problems have no business in prime sleeping spots but other dogs are fine with this arrangement.
• Is it okay for the dog to be in the same room in which meals are being eaten?
• Is there any room in the house that is off limits to the dog?
• Will the dog be allowed messy chew toys in the house? On the carpet?
• Is it okay for the dog to roughhouse in the house?

Discuss these questions with family members BEFORE you bring the dog home and enforce your rules from the instant your dog walks through the door. Because dogs live in a hierarchy, they are fine with different sets of rules for different dogs. You just need to be consistent and spend the time needed to make them clear.

The single most useful tool in the house training (and potty training) of your Rottweiler is a crate. The crate serves as the dog’s own quiet room, a place where your dog can go to get away from the hubbub of daily life. Children must be taught not to disturb a dog in its crate. Some dogs become possessive of their crates so have a crate for each dog and don’t expect them to share.

Crating a dog is not cruel or unjust, and is not a punishment to the dog. The crate is a safe haven for a dog because crates appeal to a dog’s its most basic denning instinct. Dogs den in close quarters to provide themselves with ability to meet a challenge from a single direction and to conserve heat (Meyer, 1986). Chose a crate in which your dog can stand comfortably without lowering his or her head. Your dog should also be able to turn around without bumping its nose or butt on the sides and should be able to lie full out without being cramped.

The crate provides you with a safe place to confine your dog when you can’t supervise properly. It gives you peace of mind to leave your dog at home while you shop or work because your crated dog will not injure him or herself or destroy your possessions. It gives you peace of mind during potty training since dogs rarely soil its den. Remember to potty a dog immediately after uncrating. Carry puppies directly to the potty area.

Put a blanket in your dog’s crate for comfort and put the crate in a quiet area in the busiest room in the house. Dogs do not want to feel isolated from their families even when they want quiet time for themselves. Crating will help your new dog adjust more quickly to your household. Any initial complaining on the part of your new dog doesn’t not likely result from the crate but of the actual adjustment. Don’t let a complaining dog out of a crate. Wait until the dog settles before releasing him or her. Rottweilers are so smart they’ll quickly learn that if they complain loudly and long enough you’ll relent and let it out. Don’t use the crate as punishment. Never put your dog in the crate when you are angry or directly after a scolding. Ask the dog to do something you know it can do, (e.g. sit) praise him for doing it and then crate the dog after the praising (even if you are angry).

Barking
This is a most undesirable habit, annoying to both your family and neighbors. A barking dog is reacting to a stressful stimulus, and excessive barking can jeopardize your dog’s health. This habit can be one of the most difficult to retrain. In order to curb barking behaviors, it is important to determine when they occur and what initiates barking.

Dogs bark for various reasons: territoriality, to signal to other dogs, barrier frustration, fear, separation anxiety, inactivity, boredom, or paranoia. You’ll need to determine which is the cause of your dog’s barking and work from there to curb the habit. There are several devices you can buy for the purpose of teaching your dog not to bark; some use an electrical stimulus, a noise stimulus, or a citronella spray to discourage barking and are activated by barking. A big problem with these devices is that they cannot distinguish between acceptable (e.g. alarm bark) and unacceptable barking.

The best way to discourage barking behavior in your dog is to prevent the situation that causes your dog to bark in the first place.

Keep bored dogs active, retrain separation anxiety (this will be discussed), or eliminate that which causes fear and stress in your dog. Eliminate barrier frustration by not chaining your dog or leaving your dog in a fenced yard for extended periods of time. Don’t leave territorial dogs outside to disturb neighbors. Since some dogs bark at a fence if they believe the fence is theirs to protect, keep these dogs away from visual stimulus by preventing them seeing or hearing other people, animals, or objects on the other side of the fence. Consider crating your dog inside your house where your dog’s barking won’t disturb neighbors. Tying your dog is only acceptable if you are within eyeshot of your dog and a fence is not available. Many dogs strangle to death each year because they are left tied without supervision. Rottweilers are strong dogs and can break away when straining at the tether and barking in a protective manner. Without a barrier or some sort–a fence or hedge, for instance–many dogs cannot distinguish where their territory ends. Once loose, they can viciously defend what they believe to be their territory–small children can be mauled and killed by dogs. And focused on pursuing the perceived invader, your dog may run into traffic and be killed.