House training with xpen and litter box

People seem to get confused, thinking that “house training”, and “litter training” differ in some way. Basically, potty training is teaching a puppy where NOT to go. You do not need to “teach” a puppy to go outside. They will do that automatically when given access. What they need to learn is that the ONLY acceptable place to potty in the house is their litter box. And any puppy from the Kings will have a good BASIC understanding of that. ( which the new owner needs to continue training in THEIR home!!!)

”Crate training” for toileting is something quite different, and something I do not approve of. That is STRICT confinement to a crate at all times, except when you potty the pup and for a shot time afterwards. I think this is a cruel amount of confinement for a young puppy. crate training, IMO, should be to teach a puppy that their crate is a pleasant and comforting place to be for bed time, naps, and when they MUST be confined for one reason or another.

Here are the instructions I give to my puppy owners for going home, and this is based on what I learned from the Kings over the years (except that I use grated potty trays, where I think they still mainly use open potty boxes… that makes no difference to these instructions):


And here is a FAQ on potty training, since there are always so many OTHER questions!!!

It is imperative to emphasize indoor potting to start with if it's important to you. If you don't, you will, for sure, lose it.

My feeling is that adult dogs look at potty trays the way we humans look at Porta-potties... We use them if there is no choice, but we'd prefer not to. My adult dogs would ALL prefer to go outside, but will use their boxes in a pinch... like on a pouring rainy day, or if there is so much snow they can't get out the back door until the deck has been shoveled!

More importantly, on the VERY rare occasion where we have HAD to leave them home in an emergency for a long period with no one to let them out, we know we can, and they have an option to keep themselves comfortable and not have an accident. When my husband had a severe heart attack out of state, and I had to be away from the house for 14 hours a day to be with him, Kodi and Pixel (who was less than 9 months old at the time) were able to be left with a potty, water and some chews and toys, and while they may not have loved it, they were fine.

A final thing that people rarely think about when potty training their puppies, is the other end of life. As Kodi got older, he needed to pee... a lot. During the day, I honestly don't know how often he peed, but I saw him using his boxes OFTEN. He often would ask to go out, and if I didn't get to the door in time, I'd find him on the kitchen potty box by the time I got there, because he couldn't wait. I suspect that would have been an accident, and my fault) if he hadn't been potty box trained.

Likewise, he couldn't get through the night without getting up to pee. I got tired of getting up at 2AM to let him out of his crate to potty. So we set him up with a little pen around his crate with a potty tray, so he could get up and potty himself during the night. You can't do that with a dog who doesn't USE a potty tray.

Based on these responses I’m wondering how I ensure that puppy continues to use litter box even though we go outside. Do I intentionally not take him outside too often so that he relies on the litter box as well?
For overnight, I thought I would keep puppy in kennel and wake up every few hours to bring him to litter box in bathroom. Or would it be better for him to be in xpen in bedroom with litter box in the xpen. Another xpen In the house? Would prefer not unless it is strongly advised.
this is my second Starborn puppy. I don’t recall how I did it the first time nor do I recall fussing over the process this much. And my puppy turned out great. He was trained very quickly and only had a few accidents.
It seems this time around I am more concerned maybe because I am older and wiser and I know there are so many ways this can go wrong and I want to be sure to get it right.

Charleysmom said:

Based on these responses I’m wondering how I ensure that puppy continues to use litter box even though we go outside. Do I intentionally not take him outside too often so that he relies on the litter box as well?
For overnight, I thought I would keep puppy in kennel and wake up every few hours to bring him to litter box in bathroom. Or would it be better for him to be in xpen in bedroom with litter box in the xpen. Another xpen In the house? Would prefer not unless it is strongly advised.
this is my second Starborn puppy. I don’t recall how I did it the first time nor do I recall fussing over the process this much. And my puppy turned out great. He was trained very quickly and only had a few accidents.
It seems this time around I am more concerned maybe because I am older and wiser and I know there are so many ways this can go wrong and I want to be sure to get it right.

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Charleysmom said:

Based on these responses I’m wondering how I ensure that puppy continues to use litter box even though we go outside. Do I intentionally not take him outside too often so that he relies on the litter box as well?
For overnight, I thought I would keep puppy in kennel and wake up every few hours to bring him to litter box in bathroom. Or would it be better for him to be in xpen in bedroom with litter box in the xpen. Another xpen In the house? Would prefer not unless it is strongly advised.
this is my second Starborn puppy. I don’t recall how I did it the first time nor do I recall fussing over the process this much. And my puppy turned out great. He was trained very quickly and only had a few accidents.
It seems this time around I am more concerned maybe because I am older and wiser and I know there are so many ways this can go wrong and I want to be sure to get it right.

Click to expand...

I am also picking up my Starborn puppy in two weeks and couldn’t be more excited. While this will be my first Starborn puppy, she will not be the first puppy that I have potty trained, but like you somehow I have forgotten what I did and I too am seriously fussing over the process. From the looks of my setup with various expens, crates, toys, treats, and beds, my husband is concerned I’m getting multiple puppies! We are in a two story townhome and have an expen set up downstairs in the main area of the house with her litter box, bed, etc. I have a small crate set up in our bedroom upstairs for bedtime and had planned to take her outside at night if she needs to potty, but now I’m wondering if it makes sense to put a second litter box in my bathroom upstairs for overnight potty. Would love to get everyone’s opinion. I have an older male dog that I didn’t want to have access to the litter box as I was afraid he would start using it, which is why I planned for the one box contained in the expen. Sounds like though from other posts, older dogs that were not litter box trained likely won’t use the litter box? Thanks in advance!

Tom King said:

Along with the litterboxes, we also have a grate over a pad out on the porch. They use it. Confusion is never something we consider with them. Confusion is not part of the picture. It's all habit. There is not really any reasoning on their part when they're babies. The main thing is easy access with no puzzle to solve to get to it.

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Sometimes the “confusion” is on MY part! In the pen, I gave the puppies this bath tub mat with a “scrubby” texture as a different texture to walk on. (this was pre-teeth) It was bright blue, and while if someone was on drugs, MAYBE they could IMAGINE it looked like some alien grass, it REALLY had very little resemblance. And to a dog? You know it had to have a rubbery smell. Plus, the puppies had not even been outside yet.

Every one of the puppies ran over and peed on the thing! Total fail! And, of course, since it was meant for the bath tub, it had holes all over the bottom, so all the pee drained through to the floor. what a mess! Obviously, THAT was removed immediately!!!

WHY did they think that was a potty spot? I haven’t got a clue. But fortunately, it’s not something they are likely to come across in any owner’s home!

Charleysmom said:

It sounds like you have a lot of litter boxes in your house. How many do you actually have?

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Oh, well, we have LOTS right now, with a litter of 9 week old puppies! LOL!

When we just have our adult dogs, we have one in the corner of the kitchen, one in my office, (which is where the dogs are confined when we are not home) and one in the corner of our bedroom upstairs which was for Kodi… and probably should be removed… no one else uses it. 😢 …Then again, it will probably be used by Lili over the next few months, so…

oh, and as far as all the different types are concerned, we haven’t used them all at the same time. Just over time. I prefer the grated type personally. Less mess. I walk around in sock feet or barefoot a lot of the time, and a pine pellet on the floor HURTS!!! 😉. I prefer the grated ones with higher sides, because they hold more pellets. But they aren’t made anymore. So when we have needed to buy more for puppies, we have needed to buy flat ones.