[amyann]

Originally Posted by tsehasd

I know there is a lot of postings on potting training but I am not finding any help. We have be trying to paper train sophie and she is not getting it. We have gone and wiped her pee on the paper and she still does not get it. I am thinking of trying kitty litter. Will she be more attractive to it? I am not sure. Please help.

How old is Sophie? It's gonna take a litte time for her to get the idea of going onto paper. You still need to get her semi-paper-trained before she would use a litterbox. So, here is how we did it with our baby girl.

I fenced off a small area in our bathroom (we have a pretty good size bathroom) and cover the whole area with newspaper. I put her in there along with a couple of toys (washable of course). That's where she stays when we can't watch her. Of course she will go anywhere she wants in her space at first but it will always be on newspaper. Then I started to reduce the area covered by paper, very slowly, from where she never went on (you would see a pattern soon). It takes time as she would do it on the floor by accident if you go too fast. Slowly and surely the paper area would be small enough that you could fit the paper in a dog litterbox.

We use a toy size dog litter box that we got at PetSmart. After our little one get used to the size of the paper as it was reduced, I put the paper she had pee on (dry out alreay) in the litter box. I watch her very closely and put her in the box when she needs to go. Now, Sophie is NOT going to go the first time she is being placed in the box as it is a new idea to her. You just have to keep on trying. She will eventually go in the box on the paper as you won't get your eye off her for her to make a mistake. Praise her in a very happy tone and give a big treat. She would love to go in the box at no time as she was paper trained first and that's where the paper is. Besides, she would get a big treat out of you.

We actually have two littlerboxes side by side in her playpan now. If I couldn't clean it up right away, she can always use the other one. She would rather go anywhere else than to set her foot on a dirty wet paper.

We don't use dog litter for the box for two reason. First, the pieces are too big for our baby girl to gain her footing as she is so samll. How can she do it if she can't even stand on it instead of sinking into it? Second, she thinks the litter is fun to chew on than anything else.

This is just our experience and it works well for us. It would take a while to litter train a puppy. Sophie will get the idea if you keep on trying. Good luck.