Housebreaking
Encyclopedia
Housebreaking is the process of training a domesticated
animal
that lives with its human
owners in a house
to excrete
(urinate
and defecate
) outdoors, or in a designated indoor area, rather than inside the house. The pet owner's desire is to break the habit of eliminating in the house, hence the term. House-training (a term more commonly used in British English
) or sometimes even potty training
are common synonyms for housebreaking.
Domestication
Domestication or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. In the Convention on Biological Diversity a domesticated species is defined as a 'species in which the evolutionary process has been...
animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
that lives with its human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
owners in a house
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
to excrete
Excretion
Excretion is the process by which waste products of metabolism and other non-useful materials are eliminated from an organism. This is primarily carried out by the lungs, kidneys and skin. This is in contrast with secretion, where the substance may have specific tasks after leaving the cell...
(urinate
Urination
Urination, also known as micturition, voiding, peeing, weeing, pissing, and more rarely, emiction, is the ejection of urine from the urinary bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body. In healthy humans the process of urination is under voluntary control...
and defecate
Defecation
Defecation is the final act of digestion by which organisms eliminate solid, semisolid or liquid waste material from the digestive tract via the anus. Waves of muscular contraction known as peristalsis in the walls of the colon move fecal matter through the digestive tract towards the rectum...
) outdoors, or in a designated indoor area, rather than inside the house. The pet owner's desire is to break the habit of eliminating in the house, hence the term. House-training (a term more commonly used in British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
) or sometimes even potty training
Toilet training
Toilet training, or potty training, is the process of training a young child to use the toilet for urination and defecation, though training may start with a smaller toilet bowl-shaped device...
are common synonyms for housebreaking.