# Housetraining in the City- confusion and questions



## Mirafi (Aug 1, 2012)

hello!

It's been a REALLY long time since I've housetrained a new puppy, and when I have I've always had lovely convenient things like a back door and a yard one step out the back door. 

Now I live in the city and my new apartment is on the third floor, the 'potty spot' down three flights of steps, 3 doors, over a sidewalk and onto a strip of grass where there will certainly be all sorts of distractions day and night. It's clear things need to be different this time around.

I'm thinking that I want to potty train my Hav in such a way that she will be able to use a doggy litter box when needed (like at 3am in 10 degree Chicago weather) but also know that the outdoors is the preferred place to go and ask appropriately to go there.

My ideal situation would be that the fully trained dog will first ask to go outside via a bell (this is the scenario I'm used to with my former dogs) but when cued in such a way to let her know "that's not where your potty is today" she then goes to her doggy litter box.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around this and can't help but think that it's going to have to be one way or the other. 

Conventional wisdom states that if you train for pee pads or litter boxes then that's where the bathroom is- not outside -and it makes it very challenging to get them to go outside. 

Can anyone help shed some light on this for me? 

Thanks!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Mirafi said:


> hello!
> 
> It's been a REALLY long time since I've housetrained a new puppy, and when I have I've always had lovely convenient things like a back door and a yard one step out the back door.
> 
> ...


I've found with Kodi that it was a very natural progression. He has PREFERRED going outside since he was quite young, only using his litter box as a last resort. I didn't have to teach him to go outside, he just automatically did it, and we praised him for it.

We have had to work harder at maintaining his interest in using the litter box. I found that at the beginning of his first and second winters, we had to watch him carefully and really reinforce litter box use for pooping. He was perfectly willing to pee there, but REALLY wanted to poop outside. Sometimes this just wasn't possible because of big snow drifts. He will also ONLY poop in the litter box if it is completely clean. If there is a pee spot that hasn't been picked out... no go.

Kodi was never willing to ring bells, even though we worked on it until the bells had scratched our woodwork all up!!! He did start telling us he needed to go out by going to the door and using a deep "woof" that he uses for nothing else. But HE developed this system by himself, and it wasn't until after his second birthday. Until then, we didn't have accidents, but it was because of a combination of knowing his schedule, and having the litter box available.


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## mcc.christina (May 23, 2012)

I live on the 4th floor of an apartment building. My pup is only three and a half months old, but here is what advice I can give you. 

Having an indoor potty system is a saving grace for those middle of the night or bad weather potties and when he/she is first learning you will have to run them to the potty on occasion and that is so much easier when it is right in the bathroom, not down flights of stairs. 

She still goes outside and much prefers to poo on the grass (and the carpet) over her UgoDog, but we are working on that.

It has also made traveling easy, especially hotels.

Best of luck!


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## Tom King (Aug 2, 2006)

There is no confusion on their part. If they develop the habit of using an indoor option they will, even though most prefer to go outside. It's not reasoning on their part, especially when they are small. It's habit. People who only want them to go outside and don't provide an inside option are the ones who have to do the most cleanups in the house. They need to develop the right habits early. We have thirteen of our own who have free access to going outside. Every one of them prefer to go outside, unless it's raining or some other sort of miserable outside, and then they will find a litter box.


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## Mirafi (Aug 1, 2012)

That's really encouraging, thanks! So far we're doing quite well with only a couple accidents on the wood floors which were my fault as I had her out and playing for longer than I realized. She's gone on the pee pads several times and also will go when I take her out which I've been doing about every hour. She has not gone in her crate at all and sleeps through the entire night which has been a pleasant surprise


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