Litter Box Training Your Yorkie
 

I'm new, but I have been trying to read as many posts as I can. I've noticed that I haven't come across anything about litter box training yorkies. I was just curious if there is anyone out there that has done this also?

Silvia is almost five years old and we litter box trained her. It started out as a temporary solution to chewed up puppy pads all over the house, but it turned into a permanant thing. It has been a lifesaver as far as being able to leave her home alone overnight and not worrying, or not making it home in time to take her outside, etc. Also, when we realized that Silvia was going to be much smaller than we anticipated, it worried us to take her outside to do her business because she won't walk through the grass. She's so close to the ground that it bothers her and her tummy barely clears the grass. She's hilarious, like a cat with tape on the paws! :D

Speaking of a cat, we do have two cats, and I was at first worried about them wanting to use her litter box, but that has never been an issue. The dog litter is much larger than cat litter and is made of recycled newspaper. It is comparable to the size of a pencil in circumference and the pieces are a 1/2" - 1" long. The cats have never even stepped foot in the box, and don't seem interested in it at all.

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else has done this. And I was also wanting to put the idea out there for people looking for housebreaking solutions, since I haven't seen anything on it.

Hello and welcome! I use liter for my chihuahuas but we peepad train Jasper and when he gets older he will go outside.Our Chis were rescues and were scared and timid so we had no choice but liter train them.They were scare of every noise and hated leashes.They are much better now but since they use the liter box we have kept with it.I like it a lot but Tinkerbell likes to carry some liter out of the box.Otherwise it is a nice and easy thing to use.

i would love to know how to do it?
 

hi there. :) im new on here . i bring my yorkie pup home on the 18th of next month. i was thinking of using puppy pads until i came across ure suggestion of the litter box.. which can i just say i think it sounds gr8 and would siut my situation perfect. myself and my partner work everyday.. so most mornings my new dog will be home alone.. could u tell me how i go about litter box traing plz? any other tips u have for my new puppy will be much apprieciated. thanku.:thumbup:

I do have a friend who litter box trained her yorkie. She does really great with it. Of course, she started this just as a puppy. It was new to me @the time.

We treated litter box training just like you would the puppy pads. We put a box in her cage and we also put one in one other place in the house. Everytime she acted like she were about to use the bathroom, we would scoop her up and put her in the box real quick and then praise her and give her a treat for using the box.

In the case when she would pee on the floor or in her cage, we would of course rub her nose and raise our voice which scared her (never hit because her little hips are fragile). Then we would take her to the box and speak in a high pitched happy voice and give her a greenie treat.

Instead of cleaning up the pee accident, I would take a maxi-pad and soak up the pee and then stick the pad to the bottom of the litterbox and bury it with the litter, so the scent would be there. If she pooped on the floor, we did the same thing and picked up the poop and put it in the box.

She caught on very quickly. Now, she still had accidents on occasion, but I believe that's the nature of yorkies. She's four years old now and she might have two accidents a year, and once of those were probably our fault for accidently leaving her cage door closed.

It's been such a great solution for our situation, because I always worried about her being so little and hurting her bladder holding it so long. It's also nice not to have to take her out every-so-often, or in the middle of the night. She knows that she can go the bathroom ANYTIME she wants. We often watch TV with her laying beside us on the couch and she will disappear for a few minutes, go use the box, and come right back. SOOOOO easy!!! :D

I would recommend it to anyone! Good luck!

Great idea! Where do you get doggie litter?
 

I would love to litterbox train my Roxy. she rarely goes outside to poo- only to walk in good weather. She is pee pad trained but will not for some reason poo on the pee pad. Her favorite spots are the tile floor in my bathroom and the vinyl floor in the hallway right outside my bedroom. This is not a real problem- just have to keep tissue and disinfectant spray handy to get it up. She used to only poo when I was home, but lately she has been doing it once a day while I'm at work. A litterbox would be ideal.

When we had a stray dog for a few weeks, we tried the "doggy litter" stuff and hated that the pellets were so big. So I can not suggest a litter box with that stuff in it. :eek:

Most people here I think use the litter box with a pad or cat litter in it. At least I think that is what I understand. The stray dog did learn to use the litter box very quickly, but the big (now wet) pellets could not be easily separated from the dry pellets and we ended up putting a pad at the bottom because urine would still collect in the pan. :(

I think a box for the pad, be it a litter box or a refrigerator pan, is a good idea because they will not accidentally walk off and do business thinking they are on the pad. Penny does this several times a day because her pad is just on an office chair pad. (We are going to train her to a Pet Loo in a couple of weeks.)

Hmmmm......I've never had a problem with the little pellets. My situation was the opposite, because Silvia would move the pee pad or chew it up, so it was never where it was supposed to be when she needed to use it. I'm sure there are several different brands of the pellets, but the ones we use are very easily separated when wet, so we just pick up once a day and then change the whole box once a week or so. We've never had pee collect in the box either, as the pellets absorb very well.

If we were ever to try pellets again, I would go to Home Depot and buy the pellets for pellet stoves. They are supposed to dissolve when wet and are a bargain. I learned about this recently from a book on dog potty training.

I don't know if there are different pellets for stoves, but the ones suggested are made from newspaper.

my yorkie came litter box trained, you can buy pellets at petco but she kept eating the pellets and throwing them up. i tried different pellets i bought at walmart but mia also ate them. i tried the pads, and then the pads with a frame to hold it to the floor but in less than 10 minutes i had little white puffs all over. then i found a thing called wizdog on the net. it's a plastic tray that you put pads in and a grate over the pad. the dog can't get at the pad but pee goes right through. my mia pess on it but rarely poops on it. she likes to poop on my bedroom rug but at least she pees on the wizdog.

thanku
 

thanku for the relpy :) i love that i can come on here with my questions and learn as much as i can before i bring my yorkie home..litter training sounds real easy..i hope mine learns real quick too :animal-pa i will be taking a few days off work when i get her..so should i start with the litter box straight away? she will only be ten wks when i bring her home.:aimeeyork so cute i cant wait!....wot type of treats can i give her at this young age? thanks again for all the usefull info :thumbup:

I think ten weeks is a great age to start, and yes I would start from the instant you bring your new baby home. Silvia was also ten weeks old when we brought her home and we already had her boxes set up for her, so that's the first thing we did after introducing her to the cats. Since you will most likely need lots of treats in the beginning to motivate your pup to use the box, I would focus on very small treats that can be broken up. We used greenies, the kind that came in tiny little broken up pieces. It only took the smell of the treat to motivate her and they were so tiny that we could give her lots during the day. I hope your baby does really well with it. Good luck! And if you have any other questions about it, feel free to PM me.

I also tried litter box training but all of mine ate the pellets. I would love to be able to try again because I'm tired of washing pee pads. I just don't know what pellets to buy that they wouldn't eat:confused:

I never tried cat litter only doggie litter from PetsMart

I have read in several places now about the pellets at Home Depot for pellet burning stoves are good as dog litter. They are supposed to be wood pulp and lots cheaper than dog or cat litter. People that write dog potty training articles are saying that is what they use.

I have not seen them or tried them, just mentioning what I have read.

Mine is litterbox trained while I'm at work during the day and goes outside when I'm home. She would tear the pee pads to shreds and I would come home to little wet, white pieces of pee pad. She did chew and play with the pellets when I first started training her but after two weeks, the novelty must have worn off. I used to come home and find the little pellets all over the x-pen area but now I only find one or two stray pellets outside of her litterbox.

We litter trained Buddy and have loved it, now Bella has not taken to it quite as well she hates stepping on the litter.

Silvia also chewed on the pellets when we first started training her. It worried me that she would ingest them and them swell in her tiny belly, but we never had that issue. It was like she just wanted to chew them and shred them. She never threw up or anything like that. She did eventually stop doing this, not really sure what the change was, but we began to notice less and less shredded pellets, until there aren't anymore now. I think it's just the novelty of something new to chew on, like the above poster said. Of course, some things just won't work for some dogs, but I belive it's worth the try just like any other kind of training option, considering the ease of it after trained.

this may sound silly
 

:animal-pa thanku fro the replys guy! am so glad to have found YT :) this may sound like a silly question....but is it cat litter i buy? ive honestly never heard of litter training for a dog...but it does sound like a brilliant idea....:D:D:D

I use an actual litter made for dogs called Second Nature by Purina. I get it at Petco. Also, Petco and Petsmart have their own brand of dog litter. And I was in Target tonight and they had a brand too. I've also been reading the above posts and a few people have used the stove pellets from Home Depot. I haven't tried those, but some have. The key is to find what works for you. You may have to try a couple before you find one you like. Good luck!

I think litter box training will be my next thing. Im going to get a litterbox tomarrow and see if that'll work better. My baby boy started getting the idea of peeing on his pad but I am sick of washing it almost every day. He pooes on different areas tho so idk if the litter box will change that. It seems that he doesnt like going pooing where he pees:confused:
Will litter box give him enough area to go around in circles like he does before when getting ready to poo?
Thanks!

There are different size boxes, so you can choose the right size for your baby. I don't use a puppy pad in the box, I use actual litter. As with any housetraining solution, it will take some time to acclimate puppy to the litter box, but read some of my earlier posts in this thread about putting the scent in the box and hopefully it will be a good solution for you. Good luck!

Thanks!!:)
Ill give it a try, hopefully it works:hands:

thanku 4 all the info on litter training ille let use know how i get on.i didnt have the first clue about any of it. but the more i learn, the more it seems to make perfect sense :)

Litter box training
 

I have been thinking about litter box training so I was reading all of your posts. When I was searching the internet for a dog litter box I ran across this website and I love it. It will save so much money in the long run and the babies will stop chewing on the pellets. Rascal Dog Litter Box - Home
Check it out.

Thanks good info - has anyone used this before?

I was having issues getting Disney potty trained. When he was a few months old, we were on vacation in Florida at my parent's house while it was cold up here in Illinois. He did FANTASTIC going potty outside on the grass. My dad had an idea to go to Home Depot down the road from their house in Florida and bought two squares of sod. He put it in a beer flat lined with plastic so no water leaked. We brought those home and placed them by the door Disney was supposed to go out. He would switch between the sod and the litter box depending on what business he had to take care of. When it got warmer, he went outside to do all business. He's now to the point that he will use the litter box if there is a pee pee emergency, but won't poo in it. I obviously no longer have the sod, but he goes outside primarily. The litter is a wonderful lifesaver if I'm in the shower or if he wakes up in the middle of the night to go potty.

plz help
 

:confused: hi guys, ive been trying to find doggy litter at every pet store i know, but so far ive only came across cat litter? :( the advice i got from the pet stores was no help at all. the man looked at me like i was a krazy woman when i said i wanted to litter train my yorkie puppy? i live in scotland? can any1 tell me where i can get it? or an alternative to doggy litter plz?

Hmmmm.......not sure about particular stores that would sell it where you are, but have you considered ordering online? Maybe you could get a bag and take it to a local pet store and see if they could get it, once they know what it is. Here are a few links:

Purina Second Nature

Amazon.com

Shopzilla.com

Epinions.com

Do you have a hardware store that sells pellets for pellet stoves? I have read in a few dog litter training articles that wood stove pellets are much cheaper and even work better.

A pellet stove looks like a wood heating stove, but burns pellets instead. The pellets are made of wood pulp and dissolve when wet.

Good idea! I didn't think about this, as I haven't used it, but I have also read where several people used it and did well with it. That might also be easier for you to get.