To Use Newspaper or Not To Use Newspaper

April 26, 2010

Louie and the Newspaper Its been a tough decision, deciding whether or not to encourage Louie to do his business on newspaper inside the house. So many people encourage it, saying that its a great method: “When you leave the dog alone for a long period of time, he’ll know to use the newspaper while inside the house.” “When you visit a friend, you can lay out newspaper in their home, and the dog is sure to use it as opposed to their floor.”

I spent a few days trying to encourage Louie to use the newspaper for the purpose of doing his business. I took some advice and rubbed some of his previous pee on the newspaper, so he would be drawn to the smell and know it was okay to continue peeing there. This actually worked. It seemed he immediately knew that was where he should go. Unfortunately, he started bringing all of his toys there to play amongst the filth. Additionally, he’s going through a chewing phase, and the newspaper was his favorite material to chew.

After talking it over a bit with Juan, we decided it was best not to use newspaper as a training method. I know plenty of dogs that have been house trained without the use of newspaper. All of them are able to hold off until they’re taken outside before they do their business. Hopefully, we can teach Louie the same