How does litterbox training fit into housebreaking?

[Lisa67]

I have a 10 week old puppy that I'm crate training. She's doing pretty well but does have accidents because, as I mentioned in a previous post, no one in my family watches her as closely as they should when I'm at work. Fortunately, I work nights 7pm-7am (3 night/week) so she's asleep most of the time that I'm gone. She does make it outside the vast majority of the time.

When she does go in the house she usually goes on my older dog's bed. I guess because it's absorbant.

So, I see a lot of talk here about litterboxes. I have never heard of litterbox training a dog and I'm curious how it works. I don't really like the idea of the her peeing or pooing in the house at all, but since I'm having this problem I think its better than letting her go on the dog bed. Will it slow down the housebreaking at all?

Thanks!!!

[Nemo]

I litter box trained my previous pup. She stayed in an xpen which had a crate and the litter box. I didn't use litter but newspaper instead. She was already paper trained before hand so it was an easy transition. She preferred to go outside but on those occasional days where she was in the xpen for more than 5-6 hours, she used it. After a while she stopped using it all together. I'm not sure if I was just lucky or what. Worked well for me.

[Voodoo]

It's easy to litter-train a pup. It's basically the same as learning them to do it outside. Watch them closely after eating, sleeping and playing, and the moment you know they have to pee (when they start to act a bit nervous, start smelling around or start turning around), you put them in the litterbox and praise them when they pee there, just like you would do when training them to do it outside.

[tanza]

@Lisa67:

I have a 10 week old puppy that I'm crate training. She's doing pretty well but does have accidents because, as I mentioned in a previous post, no one in my family watches her as closely as they should when I'm at work. Fortunately, I work nights 7pm-7am (3 night/week) so she's asleep most of the time that I'm gone. She does make it outside the vast majority of the time.

When she does go in the house she usually goes on my older dog's bed. I guess because it's absorbant.

So, I see a lot of talk here about litterboxes. I have never heard of litterbox training a dog and I'm curious how it works. I don't really like the idea of the her peeing or pooing in the house at all, but since I'm having this problem I think its better than letting her go on the dog bed. Will it slow down the housebreaking at all?

Thanks!!!

If she is peeing on your other dogs bed, I would first look at the reason being she is wanting to be dominate over the other day and "marking" the bed.

Consider this: I sent a puppy home with an experienced Basenji person (except it had been quite a while since they had a puppy around)… they had a 10yr old son, Stephen. The second night the puppy (Crystal) got on his bed and peed.... They called me cause they thought that was pretty funny, I said, she is marking his bed, she wants to climb the social ladder and be above him. They didn't believe me.... After she did it 4 more times, for 4 nights in a row, up went the gate so that she couldn't get in that room.... and very, very few times did she ever have an accident in the house

She was 9wks when they took her home.