Why do some people say the Central Asian Shepherd is a dog that can live harmoniously with humans? One reason is that it is capable of holding its urine and does not simply eliminate at random when properly guided. Toilet training is therefore a very important kind of behavior training, and one especially important principle is that you must not use punishment. Some owners bring home a very young puppy and immediately try to force fixed toilet habits, but at that age the puppy is still similar to a human infant. You would not hit a baby for urinating in the wrong place, so you should not punish the dog either.
Use Rewards to Train the Central Asian Shepherd to Eliminate Properly
Before bringing the dog home, the owner should already prepare the place where the Central Asian Shepherd is supposed to urinate. The first place where the dog urinates inside the home is especially important. Toilet training should be built around rewards. In a normal home, the living room may be around 20 square meters, while a dog toilet may be only about 0.24 square meters. Asking a puppy to find that tiny toilet in such a large space is actually a major challenge. That is why many trainers first use a small fenced area to control the environment. Common equipment includes a playpen, a dog toilet with a grate, an airline crate, a dog bed, a water dispenser, and most importantly chew toys. Some people use a cage instead of a transport crate, but a crate is often better because it creates a greater sense of security.
When the puppy is just about to wake up, wake it and open the crate door. If it urinates immediately after coming out, reward it right away. You need to seize every chance to reward the correct behavior. Trainers often work with a rough schedule: a three-week-old puppy may sleep about 45 minutes, an eight-week-old puppy about 75 minutes, a twelve-week-old puppy around 90 minutes, and an eighteen-week-old puppy about two hours. If you understand the dog's sleep cycle, you can wake it at the right time, open the door, and give it the chance to eliminate correctly.
Once the dog becomes very accurate in its elimination behavior, you can increase the size of the fenced area little by little, enlarging the space while continuing to reward success. This teaches the dog what you actually want. If the space becomes larger and the dog is still accurate, then you can start adding a cue, so the Central Asian Shepherd begins to eliminate according to the owner's signal. Why add a cue? Because without one, some owners notice that the dog delays elimination more and more. The dog understands that once it finishes, it has to go back home, so it stretches the time on purpose.
Understand the Central Asian Shepherd's Emotional Signals Around Elimination
Finally, it is important to understand why a Central Asian Shepherd eliminates in the first place. Elimination is not just the release of waste. Dogs are scent-oriented animals, so urination is also a form of scent exchange. In a sense, when a dog urinates on a landmark, it is like posting on social media. Another dog comes over to smell it, which is like reading the post. If that second dog then urinates there as well, it is like liking or commenting. Smelling and urinating are a normal part of canine social life. So sometimes the Central Asian Shepherd urinates not because of a toilet problem, but because it is emotionally expressing something.
Some owners catch the dog in the act of urinating or defecating in the living room and immediately hit it. The problem is that the dog may not learn that urinating indoors is wrong. Instead, it may only learn that it must not urinate in front of you, which leads it to hide under the sofa or on the bed to eliminate. That is exactly why punishment does not work.