Weird question, I know, but it's like this:
As a kid, our dogs always had doggie doors. The ultimate in convenience for both owner and dog, and it made housebreaking really easy.
Last summer we bought a house with a half acre fenced yard, so this coming spring I'm getting a puppy after being dogless for 15 years. I'm so excited! A doggie door out to the yard utopia isn't a possibility, though, as we have 2 exclusively indoor cats who would hop the fence and get eaten. (They have no street or forest sense.)
We DO have a doggie door into the garage, however, and the cats have their litter boxes out there. Using puppy pads in a box, and gradually diminishing the size of puppy pads while adding litter to the box, could the puppy be box trained? My husband and I are both teachers, so we'll have the summer to work on it.
Certainly, a dog won't instinctively bury the leavings, but quite frankly, one of our cats doesn't, either. (
And better in the garage than in the living room!
The pup can have total outdoor access when we're home, but my thought is that the box would ultimately eliminate "failure to hold it" accidents when we're away.
What do you think? Anyone else out there tried it? The puppy will be a sheltie, so trainability shouldn't be a problem...they're pretty darn smart.
--Nikki
p.s. I tried posting on a dog training forum, but there's a lot less internet traffic there. You're lucky to get one or 2 replies in a week. BYC is a whole different world, isn't it?!
As a kid, our dogs always had doggie doors. The ultimate in convenience for both owner and dog, and it made housebreaking really easy.
Last summer we bought a house with a half acre fenced yard, so this coming spring I'm getting a puppy after being dogless for 15 years. I'm so excited! A doggie door out to the yard utopia isn't a possibility, though, as we have 2 exclusively indoor cats who would hop the fence and get eaten. (They have no street or forest sense.)
We DO have a doggie door into the garage, however, and the cats have their litter boxes out there. Using puppy pads in a box, and gradually diminishing the size of puppy pads while adding litter to the box, could the puppy be box trained? My husband and I are both teachers, so we'll have the summer to work on it.
Certainly, a dog won't instinctively bury the leavings, but quite frankly, one of our cats doesn't, either. (
The pup can have total outdoor access when we're home, but my thought is that the box would ultimately eliminate "failure to hold it" accidents when we're away.
What do you think? Anyone else out there tried it? The puppy will be a sheltie, so trainability shouldn't be a problem...they're pretty darn smart.
--Nikki
p.s. I tried posting on a dog training forum, but there's a lot less internet traffic there. You're lucky to get one or 2 replies in a week. BYC is a whole different world, isn't it?!