Paper!

[Sabra]

My problem is that he will "go" everywhere else but his wee wee pad. When I get him to "go" I give him a little treat. Do you guys know anyways I can get him to go all the time?

We just got a 9 week old chihuahua yesterday and we're training him the same way we trained (but with a twist) our little yorkie 17 years ago. We got our yorkie in early summer so we trained her to go outside. Never occurred to me to 'litter' train her.

Anyway, training a puppy is like potty training a baby. At first they have no clue when they need to go and it takes varying degrees of time for a puppy to gain bladder control. Until he does, it's up to the 'parent' to anticipate when he'll need to go to the potty and get him there *before* the mess happens.

The first thing is to only feed them on schedule. Don't leave their food down 24 hours. Water is harder because it needs to be available all the time but it's just a matter of watching them. Then hang a bell near the door (if training outside) or the room where the litter pan/pad is. Within 10 minutes of eating or drinking, take the pup and rub him/her up against the bell and then take them outside or to the litter pan and then say "go potty" or whatever phrase you want to use. Don't play with them or acknowledge them in any way they may deem 'playtime'. Don't pick them up. Wander around a bit and let them wander too. Usually within minutes, they'll do their business. Immediately pick them back up and take them inside with lots of praise!

We're doing this same thing but with the litter box. The box is in a specific room and we rub him against the bell and then take him in and put him in the litter box and say 'go potty'. If he hops out, we put him right back in and say 'go potty'. We do this until he goes. Then we remove him with lots of praise. I'm going out today to get a bigger box with higher sides so he can't hop out. Once he learns, we'll go back to the lower sides.

The advantage to the bell on the litter pan is that once he's trained, I'll hear it and know to change the paper before it smells up the house. It took about a week to train our Yorkie...and then another week to teach her that the bell meant 'potty', not 'go outside to play'.