potty training 101
june 07, 2005
snowbie says HI on the webcam
it's been awhile since snowbie has been on here. she's now nearly 18 months old and still weighs in at 4.5 pounds. she's pretty much stabilized in weight and length. although she's very much still puppy-minded, she has certainly mellowed out a little bit. but she still loves to shred toilet paper/tissue/papertowels for some reason.
a few of you have recently written me about how i potty trained her, so i'll just answer it here on the site. when i brought her home at 4 months old, i began using a litter box with dog litter but she didn't take to that. of course she didn't want to go into the box since it was too foreign and too big for her (she was only 2.5 pounds at the time).
so i bought these baby gates (2 or 3 of them @ $10.00 each) from target/walmart to block off a certain area to keep her in - i chose the kitchen since the floors are easier to clean there. in the beginning, after she woke up from a nap, after playing and after eating, i would bring her to the box -- but rarely, anything happened and she ended up going on the floor instead. so i decided that since the box is too strange a concept for her, i would just put newspaper on the floor (next to the box) with one of those wee wee pads underneath to keep the urine from soaking through. and i went through the same ritual with her (after nap, playing, eating) on the newspaper.
after awhile (and not without mistakes i might add), she began taking to the newspaper and so i started to decrease the area of the newspaper down to one sheet eventually. then one day, i removed the newspaper from the floor and just put the newspaper in the box. she was a bit bigger then and was able to climb into the litter box without any problems and began doing her duty in there.
i should add that during the potty training period, i kept her in the kitchen area until i knew she had gone to the bathroom before releasing her to other areas of the house. everything needs to be consistent and a routine in order for them to not be confused. if you give them too big of an area, they will for sure make mistakes. but it also requires time to devote to their training. although i read about the crate training method, i never tried it out since i don't really think i want to crate my dog for periods of time.
puppies will make mistakes and if your goal is to have them go on newspaper or litterbox instead of outdoors, make it consistent so that they won't be confused. as most of you know, the reason why i chose to train her to go in a litterbox was to avoid the demise of what happened to snowie last year (who was trained to hold it until she can go outdoors). and i can tell you that on a wet and rainy day, you'll thank me that you trained them indoors. and if you wondered how long this all took, it was probably over the course of 3 months for it to be 100%. you will gradually see improvements and consistency over time. and be sure to give your puppy lots of accolades when he/she does it right. i still tell snowbie "good girl!" when she goes in there everyday and she knows she did something right. :)
i can tell you that the first time snowbie jumped into the litter box on her own to pee, i was like a parent watching their kid walk for the first time.
seriously.
let me know if any of you new puppy owners have anymore questions.
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i don't dine with my parents very often even though we reside under one roof. but once in a long while, we will go out for dinner. i know this may sound strange to many of you but that's just how it is in the life of aiyah. last friday, we decided to have dinner at new capital. they have this crazy dinner sale on shrimp so everyone flocks there for it. they give you 2 pounds of fresh boiled shrimp to peel and dip into a sauce for an outrageous price. below are a few photos from our dinner and trust me, it's not everyday that i eat this sort of dinner. :p
shark's fin soup
french style steak cubes
fresh boiled 2 pound shrimp
ginger & scallion oysters
chicken, ham and mushroom in superior broth
currently listening to: bee gees, jive talkin'
