The kennel training is the fastest and easiest I have ever found. PetSmart has a lot of books, and there is a lot of info online. Try looking under kennel training.

I agree with crate training....all five of mine love their "beds" and willing go when it's bedtime. We don't ever use them for punishment; when the huge Pit/Lab pup needs to go in his crate (during our dinner usually) it's with a huge rawhide bone that he can only have while in the crate, so he looks forward to the crate. I highly believe in classes for puppy training, especially for your first dog.

I never had any luck with the puppy pads. My puppy like newspaper better and I got it free from my office. It took a while to get him totally trained but he is as good as gold now and he will be three years old August 8th.

Be patient, persistent, and consistent.

Good Luck.

I recently lost our pug (age 12 1/2) this past March. We now have a pug-shih tzu mix we rescued. Here's my training tips- and I must say the pug was sooo easy to train. Take a hot dog, slice it into "pennies". Cut each penny into 4 pieces. (Very small pieces) Carry zip loc bag with you. When pup does something good- praise and give "treat". Crouton was trained in no time at all.

We kennel our dogs at night until they can be trusted. First thing in the morning- out the door to do her duties and a treat. We also taught our dogs to be "off leash" as we live on 34 acres.

My daughter rescued her pug, Spencer 4 years ago. He was used for stud and we were told kept kenneled 24/7. Using this technique and going out with the 2 other dogs we had, he was trained in 3 days.

Good luck! (Love your new baby- how I still miss my fawn colored Crouie!)

We use puppy pads for the old cars that have bladder problems. hehe. (leaking oil on the garage floor)

I chose "tee-tee" as my potty word. It's not a term that is commonly used up here. I didn't use "hurry up", because for me that is a phrase I use frequently during my daily life. Calling out the dog's potty word in the house would have resulted in a confused dog, and possibly an accident that would have been MY fault.
That's just me. I try to keep things simple and easy for the dogs.

I'm a great proponent of training via dog obedience classes... You'll learn so much and he will benefit from interaction with other dogs.... one way or another!

have fun!!

He is so cute. We have a min pin 5 month old. He was trained on a puppy pad. We had trouble with him trying to use my throw rugs. I got rid of the throw rugs - no more problem.

We had a smart rat terrier that we put to sleep at 13. We called him the devil dog from hell. He would push the chair back from the table, get on the table and jump to my island. He would jump and keep hitting the toilet paper on the roll until it was all unrolled. He loved to eat paper, toilet paper and kleenx. One time he ate cotton balls. We didn't know how many till he threw them up. The vet had us give him hydrogen peroxide to throw up. He ate 4 and would not been able to pass them.

Our 5 month old min pin ate one of those big black and yellow bumble bees. The vet said to give him benadril. He did throw it up and was acting funny because it had stung him in the mouth or stomach.

Your little pug is precious! I had a pug, named Maxwell, and I absolutely loved him...I miss him dearly...he was the best little dog and so loyal.

Another reason to use a crate--if you have to board the dog or it needs to spend overnight at the vet, it will be crated. My shih tzu (who had never been crated 'cause I thought they were cruel) had back surgery and was crated at the vet's. Originally Mickey was to be there a couple of nights. The day after surgery, he was sent home because he was fighting the crate & trying to get out. The vet felt he would be better at home just being kept quiet. It was waaay earlier than I was comfortable with him being home. I lived alone so didn't have to worry about kids getting him all excited.
I have crate-trained every dog since then. Casper goes into his when he gets bored or tired. He also heads in there when he sees me getting for work. :D

I would highly recommend taking him to a group where he can socialise with people and other dogs - invaluable experience for them!

Crates are also excellent tools - some dogs will opt to voluntarily put themselves in the crate so I would always leave the crate open when not in use. My two dogs understand the word "box", so if i call their names and then box they automatically get into their respective crates.