My family recently got a puppy.  Like most dogs in a new environment, he liked to go to the bathroom wherever he felt like going.  In the beginning we used to just punish him by yelling or something to try and scare him from doing it again.  He still would constantly keep peeing around inside the house.  We thought that he would have learned by now, but clearly he hasn’t.  He was trained to use a pad, but every once in a while he will find a different spot.  He learned a lot, but not enough to stop.  My mom found a new tactic to use however.  Now instead of trying to punish, she would reinforce it.  But not reinforce him peeing around the house.  She takes a paper towel, gets a little bit of the pee on it, and puts it on the pad.  Then she brings the puppy to the pad, let’s him sniff it, to know it’s his.  After that she will reward him with a treat.  It is difficult to change to this style of conditioning because he was already used to receiving treats a few times randomly throughout the day.  So it is a little earlier to determine if it will work one hundred percent, in case someone gives him a treat at a time other than when he pees on the pad.  I was a little skeptical of this idea at first because we are trying to also get him to pee when we take him on walks because he usually loves to try and run the whole time he is outside instead of actually going to the bathroom.  Hopefully by the time school ends he will have learned what he should and should not be doing.