Litter Trays For Dogs?

[meriel]

Hello All,

I want to teach my dog (silky terrier) to use a litter tray. For several reasons, the main being that she is an inside dog by nature, and when she is left outside she gets lonely and starts to cry despite having toys and bones to keep her occupied. Also, she is getting on in years (14!) and our yard has no shade at all, and I certainly do not want to be leaving her outside in the upcoming sweltering summer temperatures. So I want her to have somewhere else to relieve herself if she needs to, other than on my carpets.

My husband seems to think that if we just put a litter tray out, eventually when she needs to go she will just use it, because she would think thats more "toilet texture" than the carpets, or something.

I disagree, I think I am going to have to undergo a slow and labourious process of getting her to associate the litter tray with toilet time, plus semi undoing her current knowledge that peeing in the house is not ok, before she will think its ok to go in it when its inside.

I have started taking the tray outside and putting it on the grass when I take her out in the mornings and at night for designated wee-wee time. I have also played a game with her where she gets a dog biscuit for jumping in the tray (she was not too impressed with getting in it at all at first).

SO my question is a) can it can be done, to train a dog to go in a litter tray, and b) what are some tips and tricks for re-toilet-training dogs

Any tips or suggestions would be most appreciated, thanks!

Edited November 10, 2006 by meriel

[sas]

There are some people with small dogs who litter train.

I'd guess you could use things like a spray you can buy from the petstore that provides the dog with a scent that you spray where you want them to pee.

Just like teaching a dog to toilet outside you would use the same training for the litter box.

You could use more conventional methods such as toilet training pads or the actual inside systems designed for apartment dwellers, expensive though.

Also at her age she may not have full control of her bladder and bowl movements.

Your husband is wrong, she won't go in the litter tray by herself, it's not natural, you have to train it and even then she may not accept it.

[snobbybobby]

I want to teach my dog (silky terrier) to use a litter tray. For several reasons, the main being that she is an inside dog by nature, and when she is left outside she gets lonely and starts to cry despite having toys and bones to keep her occupied. Also, she is getting on in years (14!) and our yard has no shade at all, and I certainly do not want to be leaving her outside in the upcoming sweltering summer temperatures. So I want her to have somewhere else to relieve herself if she needs to, other than on my carpets.

Hi,

Although it seems a little bit late, have you ever thought or, found out, that dogs never foul their bedding?? Even dogs bred in cages tend to "poo through their cage". My dog does that in the park if ever he seems to know I'm chasing him with a "pooperscoopa". he finds a cyclone fence to "poo through"

Make him a spot in the laundry using a playpen type enclosure (easily purchased from Petsheds) - don't go to "hell fer pets" they are only interested in profiteering. You need to have bedding/bones/Kongs/etc., at one end and paper/litter/whatever at the other.

I started my boy off this way as a puppy and he has never soiled the house but still exhibits the above learned behaviour from pre-adoption in the park.

Hope this helps!

Edited November 10, 2006 by snobbybobby

[morgan]

What are those dog loos called? Had them there at Expo today - complete with fake grass! Sure they come in several sizes, and are supposed to be easy to clean.

It is especially designed for indoors dogs.

[MolassesLass]

The Pet Loo

:D

[TigerJack]

OK, my experiences with 6 tiny dogs all living inside when I'm not home. (One is a silky too!)

With the first tiny dog, I tried a litter tray and she thought it was just great, as a spot to dig! It was like a sandpit to her. She would furiously dig and dig and spray litter all over the place but she never once peed or pood in it. gave up on that idea.

I now do two things. I place a folded towel (I buy cheap $3 ones from Kmart or BigW and they are the 'dog towels') on the floor of the bathroom and the laundry. The little dogs know to pee and poo on those. Trained fairly easily by doing the usual observe the puppy routine and then take them to the towel when they need to go. keep them there until they use it and then reward. (This process has been introduced to two adult tiny dogs too so it doesn't have to be started as a pup.) It is a bit icky at first as you should really leave a towel in place that has already been weed on (or used to mop up an accident) as they will return to the urine scented spot next time they need to go. It does help that my house has no carpet at all so the towel is preferred by the dog as they don't like going on a hard surface where they might get wet feet.

Second thing I do now is use my own version of the petloo. Sorry but the ones you will see at the expo (saw them today myself) are horrendously expensive and you can do it yourself much more cheaply. I had my back yard done over with fake lawn and I kept some off cuts. This stuff is the exact same stuff used on the petloo. (I checked the petloo stuff to be sure of this.) I recently found that you can buy the grass by the metre at Bunnings. It's quite a wide roll so half a metre would probably get you 3 or 4 good sized pieces. Take one plastic tray (I used the upturned lid of one of those 'under the bed' plastic storage bins) and line it with a couple of folded dog towels. Place your piece of grass on top and its all done. My dogs happily use this (and I didn't have to train it) as it is the same stuff outside in the back yard.

The advantage of the home made version is that it is really cheap and it is only about 4cm high as opposed to the petloo which is about 12 cm high. (My little disabled chi x could never have gotten onto it.) The other advantage is that my version has a couple of old towels absorbing all the liquid urine and you just replace them and toss the used ones in the wash every day. The petloo has a tank or reservoir that you have to empty out each day and its rather large so that just seems like a good way to tip pee on your shoes to me. I heard the petloo demonstrator say that you just rinse the grass with water everyday and you never get a smell. Do not believe this piece of advice. I tried just rinsing my grass offcuts and they still ponged after a while. I now fold them in half and run them through the washing machine with a bit of biozet. All smells nice. I usually replace the towels about 3 times (over 3 or 4 days) and then do a grass wash and disinfect the tray and start over with all clean stuff. So its a new piece of grass roughly twice a week but towels just about every day. My washing ine is probably the only one about with pieces of lawn hanging on it.

Seriously, for less than $50 you can buy all the bits and do it yourself. I understand the petloo is almost $400. Yikes.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

Jo

edited cause I can't spel

Edited November 10, 2006 by TigerJack

[Cuddles]

I agree with making your own Pet Loo. or Sod box. I too used the litter box and Scrappy thought it was a place to play. You can also get Pee Pads that smell like grass or a thing called a Pee Post that is supposed to emit a scent to tell them where to potty.

But what ever you choose you will have to go back to the start and re educate her on where to potty.

[snobbybobby]

But what ever you choose you will have to go back to the start and re educate her on where to potty.

Why try to "educate" an animal which knows better than we all do!

As I said before - dogs will not use the place they sleep to defaecate. It's as simple as that!

When will humans learn that our canine friends know better than us? :D

We have to learn to fit into their lifestyle just as much as they do ours!

[joy4land]

The advantage of the home made version is that it is really cheap and it is only about 4cm high as opposed to the petloo which is about 12 cm high. (My little disabled chi x could never have gotten onto it.) The other advantage is that my version has a couple of old towels absorbing all the liquid urine and you just replace them and toss the used ones in the wash every day. The petloo has a tank or reservoir that you have to empty out each day and its rather large so that just seems like a good way to tip pee on your shoes to me. I heard the petloo demonstrator say that you just rinse the grass with water everyday and you never get a smell. Do not believe this piece of advice. I tried just rinsing my grass offcuts and they still ponged after a while. I now fold them in half and run them through the washing machine with a bit of biozet. All smells nice. I usually replace the towels about 3 times (over 3 or 4 days) and then do a grass wash and disinfect the tray and start over with all clean stuff. So its a new piece of grass roughly twice a week but towels just about every day. My washing ine is probably the only one about with pieces of lawn hanging on it.

Seriously, for less than $50 you can buy all the bits and do it yourself. I understand the petloo is almost $400. Yikes.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

Jo

edited cause I can't spel

This is really useful tip for me! Thanks heaps!

I just posted a topic in Puppy section asking toilet traing my GSD and JR. Now I'm thinking make a loo for each of them as they live separatlly. Just thinking how big the loo would be for the GSD :D

One question, do you really wash used towels and grass in washing machine?I have a baby and wouldnt image use same washing machine for her clothes and dog towel. How many times can a piece of fake grass be washed?

[sas]

Some dogs will toilet where they eat and sleep, it's highly dependent on the dog and its' background.

Instinct tells them not to of course but there are always those who go against the grain.

[Staranais]

Some dogs will toilet where they eat and sleep, it's highly dependent on the dog and its' background.

Instinct tells them not to of course but there are always those who go against the grain.

Yes, I've met and heard of quite a few pups that have been quite happy to toilet where they sleep, and even happy to sleep in the mess again afterwards - yuck! I've been told that in most cases, this kind of thing is caused by the pup not being kept in a clean environment when it is very young, so that it never actually has a chance to learn to keep itself clean.

Hopefully your pup isn't one of those, Meriel!

[Jibba]

But what ever you choose you will have to go back to the start and re educate her on where to potty.

Why try to "educate" an animal which knows better than we all do!

As I said before - dogs will not use the place they sleep to defaecate. It's as simple as that!

When will humans learn that our canine friends know better than us? :D

We have to learn to fit into their lifestyle just as much as they do ours!

Sorry but some dogs will defaecate where they sleep, and by choice, i had a dog that would pooh on ner bed in an open backyard and then lie down next to it, so dont rely on this old saying, this is not the only dog that does this either it can be quite common.

[sas]

Some dogs will toilet where they eat and sleep, it's highly dependent on the dog and its' background.

Instinct tells them not to of course but there are always those who go against the grain.

Yes, I've met and heard of quite a few pups that have been quite happy to toilet where they sleep, and even happy to sleep in the mess again afterwards - yuck! I've been told that in most cases, this kind of thing is caused by the pup not being kept in a clean environment when it is very young, so that it never actually has a chance to learn to keep itself clean.

Hopefully your pup isn't one of those, Meriel!

It's a common thing to see in petshop puppies unfortunately, they can take a long time to toilet train.

[TigerJack]

One question, do you really wash used towels and grass in washing machine?I have a baby and wouldnt image use same washing machine for her clothes and dog towel. How many times can a piece of fake grass be washed?

yes I do wash it all in my washing machine! Used towels are only urine soaked, all poo is removed first! Biozet or something good like Drive works just fine. I never mix loads though, the dog towels get their own load and the grass does best on its own. Seriously, its not much different from washing your own child's nappies! I have been washing dog twoels, lawn and my own clothes in the same machine (separate loads) for years now.

I have so far washed my pieces of grass dozens of times and I certainly end up with a few stray plastic grass leaves in the bottom of the machine but it scoops out easily. Mine come loose becasue I'm using the offcuts from my lawn which were cut a little haphazardly. If you got your own from Bunnings you could make sure you trimmed it between the strands of grass so you'd get less coming loose in the wash.

Jo

[joy4land]

yes I do wash it all in my washing machine! Used towels are only urine soaked, all poo is removed first! Biozet or something good like Drive works just fine. I never mix loads though, the dog towels get their own load and the grass does best on its own. Seriously, its not much different from washing your own child's nappies! I have been washing dog twoels, lawn and my own clothes in the same machine (separate loads) for years now.

I have so far washed my pieces of grass dozens of times and I certainly end up with a few stray plastic grass leaves in the bottom of the machine but it scoops out easily. Mine come loose becasue I'm using the offcuts from my lawn which were cut a little haphazardly. If you got your own from Bunnings you could make sure you trimmed it between the strands of grass so you'd get less coming loose in the wash.

Jo

Thanks Jo, that infomation really helps. I'll go to Bunnings have a look tomorrow. I just stoped wash cloth nappies not long ago and thinking about start it again is a bit painful...

Edited November 12, 2006 by joy4land

[meriel]

thankyou all so much, this has all been most helpful!!

Amhailte: no, she never toilets where she sleeps thankfully - she is not a petshop puppy but a pup from a litter from one of our previous dogs, so she has always had her bed/food/toilet areas separate. currently her bed is in the lounge room, inside water is in the kitchen. litter tray i have put in the laundry, and she gets fed on the veranda with another water, then can outside toilet on the grass where she likes. she has had a couple of accidents in the last few months (getting old ) and its always in the hallway, which is neutral territory which i guess is why she goes there, as its not in any of the designated "people rooms" where we all hang out.

snobbybobby: as above - i am not trying to make her toilet where she sleeps, or eats, the tray will be in the laundry and a seperate designated "toilet area". if you are thinking that she won't go in the house because she sees the whole house as where she sleeps/eats, i dont see how this is different to outside dogs who sleep/eat and poo all within a yard area?

tigerjack: brilliant!! this is awesome advice and suggestions, thankyou so much! i looked at the petloo ad on that website posted and was pleasantly surprised to see it was only $49.95. then i read your post, went and looked again and saw it was $499.95 thankfully hubby is a very handy type of man so i think he will love the task of making our own petloo. i think that will help alot, she doesn't dig in the litter or anything but she just won't get in the tray at all, i think some faux grass will do her good so at least psychologically she might feel more "outside" hehe.

thanks so much everyone for your advice! i think i might hold off on the tray training until we can make our own petloo rather than have her just getting used to the litter, then throwing some grass on it and confusing her all the more. thanks again all, and wish me luck! :D

Edited November 13, 2006 by meriel