Especially useful hints if you live in an apartment!

PETTABLE-L is a super place when pet owners and pet trainers meet to solve problems. Here's how Nancy responded to one particularly perplexing problem.

Here's the on-line background:

A Pettable-L member wrote: I have a thirteen week old puppy, who lives with me in a New York City apartment. I got her when she was 9 weeks old. She was paper trained by the breeder. She has increasingly pooped, and sometimes peed, in the house. Its almost as if she is regressing. I keep her in the kitchen after each meal until she has pooped (her potty papers are in the kitchen) but it still keeps happening. I also praise her lavishly when I see she is going on the paper, at my house, or any other place I have taken her, but she ignores me when I do. I don't know how I am supposed to react when I catch her at it. Before I just acted hurt, but I have grown increasingly upset, and she clearly knows she is not supposed to do it.

1. What should I do?

2. How should I react in her presence when it happens?

Nancy's answer:

First question: what should I do?

Keep the puppy in the kitchen and keep newspapers all over the kitchen floor. There are then two choices available to the puppy. Go in her crate or go on the papers. I do hope she's keeping her crate clean! While she is in this stage of training, the crate door can be fastened open most of the time. Feed her in it, introduce all her new toys and chewies in it (of course she'll take them out), praise her and fuss over her when she enters it, close the door occasionally and briefly to get her used to the idea that it can happen and it's no big deal.

Do not at any time allow her into any other part of the house unless she is on your lap or on a leash attached to your body. Obviously it has been too difficult for you to keep track of her when she is loose in the house or you wouldn't have the problem.

Totally wash the thought that the breeder had paper-trained her out of your mind. She is not regressing. She was not paper trained. She was exposed to newspapers and often eliminated on them. At 9 weeks, she clearly was perfectly comfortable eliminating elsewhere also. Therefore, she was not and is not paper trained. I think it's probably wise in a New York apartment to train her to papers, though. It's perfectly possible also to teach her, later, to use the great outdoors, also.

Praise does not mean a lot at first to a young puppy. It's pleasant, but not a powerful motivator. As the puppy is going to be spending a lot of time in the kitchen, so are you! If she's seen your disappointment and displeasure when she eliminated elsewhere, you need to rebuild her confidence fast about eliminating in front of you, lest you accidentally train her to go out of your sight to relieve herself. So be there when she uses those papers that cover the floor. As you give her a Cheerio or a Rice Puff or tiny crumb of cheddar cheese or liverwurst or chicken, you may certainly also praise her. But use the food rewards.

Gradually reduce the newspapers -- remove them from the areas she uses least, or at the doorway to the other part of the apartment, whatever you like.

Question number two -- how should I react?

If you see her starting to go on the cleared section of the floor, quickly remind her "Papers" or any other word you like (none of them have any intrinsic meaning for the puppy) and pick her up and set her on the papers. Again, reward and praise if she when uses the papers. After a week or two, when her confidence is high, so that she easily eliminates in front of you, you might begin to make a sharp vocal sound "Ah-ah" and then remind her "Papers." Don't use reprimands until you've done some positive training first.

What I've done with my own pups is remove the papers between the eventual final toilet area and the sleeping box or crate. When they are little, they stumble out of the whelping box directly into a litter pan. Gradually I increase the distance between their bed and the litter pan. You can do this with papers by just picking up the papers!

For five or ten minutes after she has used the papers in the kitchen, you can spend some time in other parts of the apartment. But keep a long, lightweight leash on her, tied to your belt or wrapped around your waist. If she starts to relieve herself, remind her "Papers" and pick her up and quickly return to the kitchen. As she gets more used to this routine, she can run to the kitchen alongside you, instead. Puppies are babies and you have to teach them in baby steps.

Good luck!

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