[Tom King]

Over the holidays we have been babysitting for 4 addition Havanese and we have a litter of 2 puppies. Since the ones we're babysitting for have been trained to different things we have 2 litter boxes and a 6 foot square of linoleum with newspaper and piddle pads on it in our TV room. The floor is wood, normally with rugs on it but we rolled them up since we weren't sure of the training of the new dogs. The room is 16x24 with a 7x10 alcove on one end for a piano. The linoleum is where the piano is. One litter box is on one end of the room, another is under the steps on one side, and there is an expen for the puppies on the other end which also has a litter box in it. The puppies spend a lot of time out of the expen. We've had a lot of company so we've been doing a lot of just sitting around talking to guests and letting the puppies run around as much as they like, but of course our eyes always notice what they are doing. One goes back to the expen from anywhere in the room and one of us immediatley picks him up and puts him in the box in the pen. He has learned how to potty by command. A few times he has gone in one of the other boxes in the room. The other puppy smelled where one of the other dogs went on the paper and he will run to the paper from the other end of the room and use it. We've only had one "accident" when the first puppy put his front feet in one of the boxes in the room and peed on the floor but that was several days ago." Today we opened the expen and the puppy who prefers to go in there will go back inside it to use the box. These puppies went through our system with a litter box in the whelping box as soon as they could toddle and at 9 weeks are virtually house trained. They have both been sleeping all night in their crates in our bedroom for about a week and seem glad to get in there when we go to bed late.

We have already explained all this to their new owners who are getting them tomorrow and next week and that it will be very easy to mess up this training. We'll see. I can always potty train one when I have it by itself. This has been the first time with two at the same time.

 

[Kathy]

Nice Tom. I have wanted to try the litter box training with my litter's but just didn't feel I had the space. How large is the total area where the box is in the pen. It is a normal 4x4 puppy pen?

 

[Tom King]

It depends on the size of the litter. As soon as the pups are old enough to toddle around a box goes in the other end of the puppy box. It has the smaller litter-Yesterday's News by Purina- in a shallow Sterilite pan, from Walmart, that is a tight fit in one end of the puppy box. I cut down one side with a hot knife to just the right height level with the pads in the puppy box as the pups mostly just wobble at that stage.

From there they go to progressively larger areas as another box is fastened to the end of the first puppy box with a step that the Mom can jump up on to get in the box.

When they move to the expens we usually start with it folded in to 2x4 with a regular litter box with the larger litter in one end. Next step is with one corner folded in so it's 2x4 with another 2x2 off one end. If it's a large litter it goes to 4x4 quicker than a small litter but it depends if the pups pee on the floor or they all go in the box. If one pees on the floor the size is made smaller- The answer to wet floor is ALWAYS too much freedom from toddling stage on up.

The litter that I was talking about when I started this thread was only 2 puppies so the expen never got bigger than 2x4 but they had a LOT of time out in the open.

They have been at their new homes for about a week now and both going to the box all the time. One still put only his front feet in once but I don't think that will last much longer. He's only done that once at his new home and did it once here, that I remember. The other one has free roam of a LARGE kitchen and goes to the box.