OLD dog litter training, can i teach an old dog new tricks? o-0?

Question

got a very old dog in an apt housing, he's been at a house all his life and is used to going through a doggy door, im wanting to train him to use a litter box, any tips for helping this to happen? i have a cat too, should i give them seperate boxes? is it possible to train a dog that has to "walk it out" to use a confined area like that to go? can he learn to do it while being still? he's old and i love him but im tired of the smell, if i can teach him i'd like to try, cant stand walking him with my busy schedule and even when i do he messes anyway because he cant even last my work hours without going... more description he's um about 14 yrs old in human years, nearly blind, nearly deaf, not quite completely either, he's a mutt, midsized, maybe 13 pds, pointers would be great, or any contact nfo2 people that work with pets would be awsome, thanks

p.s. i've read a bit of pet pads, any of them work good? odor attraction type pads i mean, im interested but skeptical, any success stories?

Answer 1

In my experience puppy pads are a joke and don't work at all. A dog at that age is going to be very difficult to retrain to go indoors. The one advantage you do have is that he is having accidents inside. I don't know what to tell you. All of my babies were trained to go on paper and my female was litter trained for a year before I housetrained her. My male will still go on paper sometimes (not because I want him to though ;-) and he's about 4. If he was paper trained as a pup he might have some scent memory of it and that would make things easier, but 14 years later it's not going be a quick task. Onces he goes on paper it is simple to switch to a litter box though, just put the papers in the box. At that point you can slowly add litter and over the course of a month or two he'll be alright. As far as getting him to go on paper, the only thing that comes to mind is keeping him in an ex pen and covering the whole thing with newspaper while you are gone... after a while you remove some of the paper, leave 1/2 covered and 1/2 not... he should chose to go on the paper after a month or so, maybe less. If he makes it a week with only going on the paper in the ex pen, give him a try with whatever your set up is now, and a large area of newspapers. If he misses once, put him back in the ex-pen for another week.

All of my experience involves puppies being trained to go indoors. I know a LOT of rescue italian greyhounds have potty issues, some of the rescue workers will have a ton of experience re-training an adult dog to use a litter box. Please check out http://www.igpost.org and ask around there. It's a forum for IG owners, if you register you can ask there how to retrain a dog to use a litter box. You will get a TON of great information there, I guarantee that... just pretend your baby is an iggy while you're there ;-) If you don't want to register, you can still search the forums for litter training, I'm sure the question has been asked a few times.

Answer 2

Hi, I understand that you are looking for some advice or resources to help fully train your dog or fix behavior problems. If a professional dog trainer is not an option at this time, or if you want to trt training your dog on your own (a great way to bond), I'd suggest you https://bitly.im/aMPyT

A friend recommened it to me a few years ago, and I was amazed how quickly it worked, which is why I recommend it to others. The dog training academy also has as an excellent home training course.