When your puppy has an accident on the carpet or floor, it is essential to clean it up as quickly and as thoroughly as possible to eliminate any lingering odors, because any remaining smell will draw the puppy back to that spot. Here are some tips for cleaning up urine on carpet:

• Blot up as much as possible with paper towels.

• Pour an eight-ounce glass of water over the spot to dilute the urine.

• Blot with more paper towels until there is no hint of yellow on the towels.

• Spray carpet cleaner over the spot and scrub with a brush or a sponge.

• Spray the area again and follow the product's directions for standing time and vacuuming. Repeat as needed.

• Spray with an enzyme inhibitor, which eliminates the odor, following the product directions exactly.

Cleaning up urine or feces on hardwood floors should be done a little differently to prevent permanent damage to the floor.

• Wipe up excess with paper towels.

• Add a capful of Murphy Oil soap to a bucket of water and wash the area thoroughly with a mop or sponge.

• Dry the area thoroughly with a rag or paper towels.

• Spray an enzyme inhibitor on a cloth and wipe down the area one last time.

Cleaning up feces on carpet can be tricky. Be sure to remove as much as possible with paper towels before treating the area to avoid rubbing the excess into the carpet and thereby compounding the problem.

• Remove all solid waste with paper towels.

• Spray with carpet cleaner and rub out as much as possible with a sponge.

• Spray the area again and use a scrub brush to deep clean the fibers of the carpet.

• Spray the area with carpet cleaner again and follow the product's directions for standing time and vacuuming. Repeat as needed.

• Spray with an enzyme inhibitor to permanently eliminate the odor.

If your dog tends to continue to go back to the same spot over and over, consider rearranging the furniture a bit to block access to that spot. Cleaning any area where an accident occurred is essential to keeping your dog on track with his housebreaking. If you are cleaning up more than a couple of accidents a week, you are probably not walking your puppy outside often enough or are allowing too much freedom too soon. Remember that limiting a puppy's freedom is half the key to housebreaking and is only temporary until your puppy proves he knows where to “go” and is completely reliable.

Dogs need to go out at least once during a four-hour period if they are confined to a small area such as a crate. If they have more freedom or free access to food and water, they may have to go more frequently. Most house-broken adult dogs need to be walked first thing in the morning, sometime midday, after work, and before bed. A midday visit from a pet sitter can help your adult dog maintain his excellent housebreaking manners.

A lack of housebreaking is a silly reason to give up a dog to the shelter or pound, but living with a dog that uses your house as her bathroom is no picnic either. Housebreaking manners are the most basic of training issues that must be accomplished if a dog is going to live peaceably with humans. The tricks to housebreaking come down to some very basic elements: Confine the dog in some way; put her on a schedule and keep track of her successes and failures; control the food and water bowls; walk her outdoors in short, frequent spurts; and avoid punishing her mistakes. If you follow these guidelines, your dog should make fairly good progress within a month to six weeks.

Occasionally a dog may have a medical problem that interferes with housebreaking. If you were making good progress with housebreaking but your dog suddenly regresses, consider having your veterinarian check a urine and stool sample for signs of infection or parasites. Both of these medical conditions can be easily treated with medication and will often present themselves as a regression in a housebreaking program.

It is not effective to pursue an issue behaviorally if the real problem lies in a medical condition. If, despite your best efforts, you find your dog's housebreaking problems baffling or you adopted your dog late in her life and she came with a host of serious behavioral problems, you may want to consider the help of a professional dog trainer or behaviorist.