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A huge part of household training is preventing your dog from making mistakes because they can quickly develop into bad habits.

Confinement is critical for household training because it allows you to prevent your dog from making mistakes when you are unable to supervise them. This is the best way to give your dog life-long freedom!

You’ll want to set up two types of confinement for your dog: Short-term Confinement and Long-term Confinement.

The short-term confinement is simple. Use a dog crate with a dog bed inside. The crate shouldn’t be too big, just large enough for your dog to stand up, turn around and lie down.

For long-term confinement, use a small enclosed area that is long and narrow. A playpen that is 3 times as long as it is wide is ideal, but you can also use a bathtub, a bathroom, a utility room or a hallway that’s blocked off with a gate.

Put a doggy bed at one end and a doggy toilet at the other end, and in the middle put a water bowl or even better, attach a water bottle to one of the walls. If you're short on space you can place the dog's crate inside the playpen, at one end, with their bed inside. 

The doggy toilet should be a shallow pan or litter box filled with whatever you want your dog to learn to use as a toilet. If you would like your dog to ultimately use grass for their toilet, get some grass sod. If you would like them to use the sidewalk, get some pavement tiles.

Your dog will instinctively try to pee and poop as far as possible away from their bed, so they will naturally use their toilet. 

Dogs don’t like to poop near existing poops, so clean up any poop immediately. Dogs do like to pee near existing pee, so you don’t need to worry about cleaning up the urine each time, though after several days you may want to change the material in the toilet for your own sake.

If you ever see your dog using their doggy toilet, praise them enthusiastically and give them several food rewards, immediately after they finish their business. 

When it comes to your dog's crate, you'll want to teach them to love spending time there.

The first time you introduce your dog to their crate, show them some extra-tasty food. Let them eat one piece then put the rest inside one of their hollow chew toys. Put the chew toy in their crate. They'll go inside, and settle down with the chew toy, eating the food and learning to love their crate. If they try to take the chew toy out of the crate, tether the chew toy to the back with a short piece of natural-fiber string. 

Have your dog enjoy several chew toys filled with food in their crate with the door open before you close the door. Then confine them inside their crate for longer and longer periods, up to one hour. At first, you might want to stay in the same room as your dog, but it’s important that you get them used to being left alone. 

So leave the room for short periods of time, initially staying nearby so your dog can still hear you, but gradually going away for longer periods, and going farther away so they can’t hear you at all. Eventually, you want to be able to leave your dog at home alone, without your dog feeling lonely or stressed.

Anytime you want to confine your dog to their crate, leave them with a food-stuffed chew toy so they have something to do.

Repeat this same process with their playpen. During the first few days your dog spends in your home, you should feed them most of their food from hollow chew toys inside their crate so that they really learn to love spending time in their crate with their chew toy.

Do not leave your dog in their crate for more than an hour at a time, at least not until you are sure they can reliably hold their bladder for longer than an hour. It’s a disaster if you confine your dog in their crate for so long that they are forced to soil their bed as it’s counter-productive, very uncomfortable and it sets a bad precedent.

If you need to leave your dog unsupervised for a longer period of time, you can leave them in their playpen. Since they have access to a doggy toilet and food-stuffed chew toys to keep them busy, they are unlikely to get into trouble.