If you are bringing a new puppy home and want to get started on training your new best friend, you might want to consider investing in a dog play pen. Having an indoor dog play pen allows you to keep your new furry friend corralled in one specific area of the house. It is incredibly useful for a number of reasons, most of all as an aid in potty training your pet.
Potty Training
Whether you opt for a large dog play pen or a small dog play pen, both allow you the opportunity to keep your new puppy confined to one specific area of your home while you house train your pet. If you opted for a small dog, you can teach your pet to either use a litter box or you can crate train them so that they learn when it is okay to do their business outside. By keeping them confined in a play pen they are unable to have free ranging access to the rest of the home, so you greatly lessen your chances of finding an unhappy accident where you least expect it. With litter box training inside of a dog play pen, you can keep the litter box at one end and their comfy crate at the other end. They soon learn that it is okay to use the litter box when they need to and that the rest of the time they can rest comfortably inside their cozy crate. This is not an option that works for a larger breed dog, but works extremely well with toy breeds. Utilizing a large dog play pen allows your larger breed dog to rest comfortably at one end of the play pen or roam around inside of the play pen to engage with their toys, yet does not allow an opportunity to find hidden corners of the house in which to relieve their bladder.
Furniture Access Training
Another great aspect of utilizing an indoor dog play pen is to use it to teach your new pet that it does not have free access to the furniture. For some pet owners it is only natural to allow their furry friend onto the furniture. For many others, allowing a pet onto the furniture sends a clear message to the animal that they are a member of the same hierarchy as their owners. For pet owners that want to establish a dominant/submissive role with their pet, using an indoor dog play pen allows them to keep their pet off of the furniture and sets up the dominant/submissive system from the moment that the puppy comes home.
No matter which way you choose to train your new dog, utilizing an indoor dog play pen can be an incredibly helpful training tool.