101 Things to Know Before Getting a Dog by Susan M. Ewing

Author:Susan M. Ewing [Ewing, Susan M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing
Published: 2016-10-12T04:00:00+00:00

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Indoor Training

If you’re just not home often enough during the day to make using a crate practical for housetraining, paper-train your dog. If you have a very small dog and/or you live on an upper floor of an apartment building, you may want to have your dog use paper all the time. Litter boxes and indoor dog “stations” are other alternatives. Some people who live in high-rise apartment buildings like their dogs to have experience going on paper in case there’s a power failure and the elevator is out of commission.

To paper-train your puppy so that he eventually learns to go outside, either use an exercise pen or confine your puppy to one specific room. A laundry room, kitchen, or bathroom is a good choice because these rooms usually have easy-to-clean linoleum flooring. Just be aware that your puppy may consider linoleum a wonderful chew toy. I don’t understand how dogs can even get a grip on pieces of linoleum, but trust me, they can.

Cover the entire floor of the room with several layers of newspaper. Supply water and toys. If the area is big enough, you can even include the dog’s crate, but remove the door. When you clean up, remove the top few layers of paper, leaving the lower layers, and then put fresh paper on top of those lower layers. Enough scent will remain to tell the puppy where to go.

After several days, cover a smaller area of the floor with paper. If your puppy consistently uses the paper rather than the bare floor, reduce the area covered by newspapers even more. Continue this process until you’ve removed all of the paper. Don’t rush the process, or you’ll have to start back at the beginning.

During this time, continue to take the puppy outside when you are home. By the time you’ve reached the stage where there are no newspapers, your puppy should be making the connection that outdoors is where he needs to go. Keep him confined to his “paper room” during the day when you can’t watch him and put down papers if he regresses.

If you have a small dog and you never intend to take him out to relieve himself on a regular basis, paper train as previously described, but never take up that final small area of paper. You can even use a low plastic box and line it with sheets of paper, keeping everything contained and making cleanup easier.

Dog Litter

Dog litter is not the same as cat litter so if you decide to litter-box train, use the special dog litter. Dogs, especially males, tend to use their hind legs to scratch and scuff the dirt after they’ve made a deposit. If you use cat litter it will end up all over. Dog litter won’t fly around quite as much.

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