Litter training small dogs?

[rafiki]

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[Ellie]

No, I have never done that or heard of anyone who has. However, my grandparents taught their small dogs to go potty in the bathtub. They figured it was easy to clean--pick up solids, run some hot water, thrown some Ajax in there and scrub a little.

[hornblower]

I'm opposed to it because I strongly believe that dogs, regardless of their size need to be treated like dogs. Sure you can teach them to do go on all sorts of places. I live in the city where it's quite popular for little dogs to be trained to go on balconies or on little cat litter boxes... I just think it's a bad idea overall. It is true that little dogs can be harder to house train because they need to go out so often & people don't watch them carefully enough to see when the dog is indicating they need to go.

 

But overall, I think it's better to teach a dog to go outside. If there's a problem with snow (& there isn't always; a lot of it has to do with what the puppies are exposed to when they're little and how much encouragement they're given to try new things), I'd clear an area in the yard regularly, just like shoveling the driveway..... here it tends to be rain that's the problem & dogs that don't want to go outside in the rain :-)

 

I encourage everyone to train their dog and treat them like a dog. Little dogs can do anything big dogs can, just on a smaller scale. They need to be walked regularly just like big dogs.

 

And little dogs can do agility too ... here's a real little cutie doing an agility course

 

Good luck with your pup!

[The Governess]

Our dogs have a doggie door so they go outside when they need to go to the bathroom. But they will not go out if it's raining. They will just pee or poop by the door. So, we use a litter box when it rains. :D Both of our dogs were litter trained as puppies.

 

The litter material we use is the standard dog litter you can buy at the pet store. The container we use we also bought at the pet store and it's made to hold the litter. Here's a link. An under-the-bed sized rubbermaid container would probably work fine, as long as your dog doesn't have an issue stepping into it.

 

Training is easy and is very similar to paper training. We kept the dogs in a small space with enough room for their bed, food and water dishes, and the litter pan. Given the option of peeing on their bed, food, water, or the litter, they usually choose the litter. :001_smile: After they are used to using it, you can gradually give them some more space.

 

The only cons I can think of are 1) the price - the litter isn't cheap; 2) cleaning the used litter up; and 3) the smell of the litter is too perfumy for my taste, but most strong scents bother me. I recommend using a very thin layer of litter material and changing it once a day. Trying to scoop out the used parts is hard because when the material gets wet it falls apart. Blech.

[ChristusG]

Why not try some puppy pads? For the most part, he should be trained to go outdoors. However, when there is too much snow, you could put a puppy pad by the door that he usually goes out to go to the bathroom, and train him to go on that when he sees it down by the door. Only put it down when you know he will not be able to go out. Then you can just pick it up and throw it away. You wouldnt have to scoop and stuff like that. We have two cats and I HATE messing with the litter box.