A litter box is a quick and easy solution to your pooch having to wait for you to get home and go potty. Plus it will prevent accidents from happening after she's trained to go in her litter box. If you think this is a challenging task, it's not, it just takes time and patience.

If you have just gotten or are thinking about getting a small dog or puppy, you may think about training the puppy to use a litter box.

Using the litter box as means of house training a smaller breed dog, you will be able to feel comfortable leaving the dog at home all day without a potty break, while you are at work for say 8 to 9 hours or more 5 or more days a week.

What do I need to Litter Train my Dog?
For the most part, the main things that you will need include a litter box and some sort of litter.

The Purina dog litter boxes are perfect, and they come in three sizes- mini, toy, and standard.
As for the litter, you can use newspaper or potty pads, but you can also purchase commercial dog litter, which makes scooping a lot easier.

Cleaning Supplies
Be sure to have plenty of cleaning supplies handy, such as mops, Swiffers, and paper towels because whille training your dog, you are bound to run into a few accidents.

Accidents
Be prepared for accidents when house and litterbox training. If you do not completely clean urine stains, the spot will become reoccurring spots that the dog will use.

Litter Training Your Dog
You want to design an environment that is going to be hard for your pooch to fail, which means that you want to first pick an area where you want the litter box to go.

You may want to develop a keyword or a phrase to tell the dog to, go potty in his potty area.
When getting the dog used to the litter box, you want to get him used to getting in and out of the box, but manually putting him in the litter box, giving him the potty cue when you put him in the litter box.

Methods to litter training a dog
1. Paper to litter box for dogs who are already paper trained
2. Crate training variation

From paper to the litter pan
• Start with cardboard boxes of different heights.
• Create a flat “pan” area with the paper (newspaper works better) by cutting out the bottom of a cardboard box and lining it with paper.
• When you change to the plastic litter box, you'll want to line the litter box with papers, making the transition that much easier for the dog.
• If you decide to cover the outside of the box with cardboard you want to slowly remove the cardboard once the dog is pretty full-proof at using the litter box lined with papers on the inside.
• Over a period of a few more days start adding the dog litter a little at a time until you no longer need the paper.

Crate Training Style
When setting up the crate or crate area you need to make sure that the area has enough room for a bed, food/water bowls, and his litter box.

It's best to stay nearby so that you can catch the dog in the litter box and praise him right after he uses it.

When your dog starts to be pretty full-proof at using his litter box, you can give him more freedom in the house.

Litter Box Troubleshooting
• Review how you have everything set up.
• If the dog potties on his bed, wash the pillow or blanket immediately, and then put treats or food on the bed.
• If the dog doesn't use the litter box when crated, spend more time training the dog about the concepts of the litter box.
• Use treats and LOADS of praise when you see your dog using the litter box.
• If the dog uses the box to pee, but not poop, you'll want to consider that the dog is one of those dogs that just doesn't like to do all of their business in one area or that he just needs to walk it out.
• Use a thin later of litter instead of the 1 to 3 inches that is recommended, as this will make things easier to scoop.

Remember that litter box training isn't going to be an overnight house training method.

Keep in mind that if your pooch is already trained to go outdoors she may need extra time to get used to going inside in her litter box. If you use the training methods above from HubPages though you'll be a step closer to getting your pup used to using her litter box. Just think of how much easier it will be for both you and Fido if she has a place to go potty while you're at work. You won't have to worry, and she won't have to hold her bladder. There's an excellent solution for both you and your pup!