Potty Training a Puppy: The Two Second Kit
Share
You have about two seconds. Pay the puppy any later than that and you are rewarding whatever it happened to be doing when the treat appeared, which is usually walking back toward the door. This kit exists to make those two seconds easy to hit: a pouch that opens with one hand, a short leash so the trip outside is one spot instead of a tour of the yard, and a bag holder that is already on the leash.
The window, not the schedule
Schedules are the easy part and most people already have one. The hard part is that the reward has to land while the puppy is still standing where it finished, outdoors, and that only happens if the treat is in your hand before you open the door. Our step by step guide to potty training a puppy covers the timing and the schedule; this page is about the four things that make the timing possible at six in the morning.
A pouch you squeeze, a leash you hold short
The One Hand Treat Training Pouch from Up Dog Shop is food grade silicone with a zipless, squeeze to open design, listed by Up Dog Shop at 3.9 by 3.3 by 1.7 inches. You squeeze, it opens, you take a piece out without looking down. That sounds small until you have tried to work a drawstring pouch in the dark with a leash in the other hand and a puppy already heading for the step. It comes in Purple, Gray, Green, Light Blue and Mauve. Up Dog Shop items are sold and shipped by Up Dog Shop through Shopify Collective and arrive separately.
Our freeze dried cheddar cheese bites live in that pouch all day, which is the reason they are the treats in this kit rather than something softer. One ingredient, an 8 ounce bag, and dry enough that they do not go greasy against silicone after a week of being carried around. Load ten pieces in the morning and top it up at lunch.
The 2 Hounds Design double connection leash is made in North Carolina and clips to the front and back of a Freedom harness at once, and 2 Hounds Design describes the Training Leash as 3 feet at two connection points or 5 feet at one. Short is the useful setting here. On a single clip it runs at 5 feet, so hold it short on the way out. A puppy on a short line goes to the spot you picked, does the thing, and gets paid, rather than sniffing a fence line for six minutes and forgetting why it came out. 2 Hounds Design items are sold and shipped by 2 Hounds Design through Shopify Collective and arrive separately.
The Tire Stack Poop Bag Holder is ours, designed in house and 3D printed one at a time in Malvern, in PETG, at about 2 ounces. Four stacked tires with real tread, the top one unscrews as the lid, and a stainless screw lock cable loop threads onto a leash or a belt loop and screws shut so it does not slide off. It ships with a roll of our strawberry scented bags and takes any standard roll after that. The reason it is in a potty training kit is that it removes the one step people skip at five in the morning, which is picking up bags on the way out.
What we left out
No pee pads and no indoor grass tray. Both teach a puppy that there is an acceptable indoor option, and then you get to unteach it later. There are apartments on the fourteenth floor where a tray is the only workable answer, and if that is you, buy one and skip this paragraph. For anyone with a door to a yard, the tray adds a step rather than removing one.
The trip outside
Treats in the pouch before the leash comes off the hook. Same door, same route, same patch of grass every time, because the surface underfoot is part of what the puppy is learning. Stand still and wait rather than walking around, since a moving handler is more interesting than the job at hand. The moment the puppy finishes, mark it and pay it, right there on the grass, not at the door. Then the walk or the play happens, which makes going out worth doing rather than the thing that ends the fun. Clean up, screw the lid back on, and go back in.
What this replaces
A jar of treats by the door and a pocketful of loose bags. The jar is the problem: it means the reward is at the door and the puppy has learned to come back to the door to collect it. Moving the treats onto your body moves the payment to the right place. The holder replaces the roll that lives in a coat pocket until the day you need it and find it in a different coat.
Questions
New puppy owners ask us these in roughly this order.
How many treats a day is that?
More than you expect in week one and almost none by week six. A puppy that goes out eight or ten times a day gets paid every successful trip at first, then you thin it out as the habit sets, which is the point at which the 8 ounce bag stops disappearing.
What about accidents indoors?
They happen and the answer is cleanup, not correction. 3D describes its All Purpose Cleaner as a spray on liquid for virtually any surface, naming leather, vinyl, rubber, plastic and cloth, and states it is ready to use from the 16 fluid ounce trigger bottle or diluted to suit the job. That write up is aimed at car interiors, so spot test a floor finish before you soak it. Pal Automotive items are sold and shipped by Pal Automotive through Shopify Collective and arrive separately.
Can I use this kit for an adult rescue?
Yes, and the timing matters just as much. An adult dog that was never house trained learns the same way a puppy does, usually faster, with fewer trips and the same two second window.
Related guides
Puppy kits sit with the rest of the training guides on the bundle guides hub. To swap the cheddar for another reward, the freeze dried dog treats are all one ingredient, and Explore filters them by protein and life stage.
