[amyann]

Originally Posted by Smudgers_mum

Hi everybody

I'm Jo and my yorkie Smudger is 10 weeks old.

I know there are many many posts on house training so i hope you don't mind me posting mine

Here's my problem.... Smudger has been with us for 2 weeks now. before we brought him home i read 3 or 4 yorkshire terrier books so i was clued up when i brought him home.

they advised that when you bring puppy home the first wee they do put a piece of newspaper on top to soak it up then place 2-3 clean pieces where you want puppy to wee and put the wet one on top. The 'theory' is that the puppy will smell the scent and go there to wee

he still hasn't done this my dad said to give it a little longer but i feel like i'm getting no where he seems to be finding more and more annoying places to wee and poo everyday

any advice??

It really takes time to train a Yorkie but it gets better as they got older. It was really difficult at first and I too did my homework, a lot of reading, before I got our baby. She is 6 months old now and house trained. That's pretty amazing for a Yorkie. Anyway, here is how we did it.

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. Smudger will eventually go in the box on the paper as you won't get your eye off him for him to make a mistake. Praise him in a very happy tone and give a big treat. He would love to go in the box at no time as he was paper trained first and that's where the paper is. Besides, he would get a big treat out of you.

We don't use dog litter for the litter box for two reasons. First, the pieces are too big for our baby girl to gain her footing as she is so samll. 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. Smudger will get the idea if you keep on trying. Good luck.