Start a log with half hour increments when you first bring puppy home. This log should show time of day, and have blank space to note each time puppy eats, drinks, walks/exercises, pees and poops. This log will help you to determine the best potty regimen for your puppy. Go to this Puppy Potty Log for a suggested starting schedule for a 2 month old pup. Start with the suggested intervals and log whenever your puppy pees or poops. Review this after several days to adjust to your puppy's patterns – each pup is different.

As puppy grows his potty schedule will change. Example: 3 mos old may drink water at 10 am and need to walk and pee at 10:15. At 5 months old, may drink at 10 am and need to walk and pee at 10:30. At 8 months old, may drink at 10am and need to walk and pee at 11am. Most puppies should be able to hold their potty all night long once they reach 6 months old, some as early as 4 months and of course some may take up to a year. So, you should review your puppy's schedule every couple months and adjust according to his latest habits.

Puppy should be accident free for at least 2 months before you consider him potty trained. It is much easier to maintain the training regimen than to revert back to square one if you stop the strict housebreaking regimen too early.

Until your pup is completely potty trained, he should not be allowed full run of the house, nor should he be allowed on furniture. Mattresses and stuffed furniture are very difficult to remove urine accidents from, so it is best to wait until you know you can trust puppy not to potty on them.