How to toilet train your puppy in a flat

You’re excited about bringing your new puppy home and you’re reading everything you can because you want to get your puppy’s training right from the start. But you’re so confused about how you’re supposed to toilet train your puppy because all the advice assumes you have access to a garden. But you live in a flat…

Don’t stress - you don’t have to choose between teaching your puppy to toilet inside and risking them getting ill by taking your puppy outside to toilet before they’re fully vaccinated. Toilet training a puppy in a flat isn’t massively different to toilet training in a house with a garden. You just need to make a few small changes to your toilet training plan.

Yes, most puppies have a garden to toilet in but it’s not a problem that your puppy doesn’t

Make your puppy a litter tray

Most people who are toilet training a puppy reach for puppy pads to soak up any inside toileting. But a puppy pad on its own is really confusing for a puppy. There’s no real distinction between the edge of the pad and your floor - so it’s not clear for your puppy where they’re supposed to pee. And your puppy’s learning that paper on the ground is the cue to toilet - which might mean they grow up peeing on your post or newspapers.

Instead, it’s much better to train your puppy to pee in a litter tray like a cat. They’ve got much clearer edges so your puppy can understand where they should be toileting. Choose the largest plastic box you can buy that your puppy will be able to step into so your puppy has enough space to toilet. Instead of filling it with cat litter, you’ll want a surface similar to what your puppy will pee on when they can finally walk outside. So you might be putting in a layer of turf, stones, gravel etc. depending on what’s right outside your flat. This will help you when you need to teach your puppy to toilet outside. You don’t need to ditch puppy pads completely - they’re great for lining the litter tray to soak up your puppy’s pee.

Choose the right toilet spot

So now you’ve made your litter tray you’ve got to choose where to put it. If you’ve got a balcony then that would be the obvious spot. But most people in flats have no outside space at all and so the best option would be the bathroom or the kitchen. Both these rooms (usually) have a hard wipeable floor which is so much easier to clean than a carpet. So if your puppy misses the litter tray you won’t have to get out the carpet cleaner. Make sure you choose a place out of the way so you don't accidentally step on or knock over the litter tray.

Training your puppy to use the litter tray

Teaching your puppy to toilet in a litter tray is basically the same as teaching them to toilet outside. You need to take your puppy to their litter tray when they wake, after they’ve eaten, drunk or played, just before they go to sleep and about every 20 minutes they’re awake. If they toilet in their litter tray you reward them with a tasty treat.

It’s really important you clean up any toileting outside the litter tray properly with an enzyme cleaner that will break down the chemicals in the pee that your puppy can smell. Your puppy is learning where their toilet is by scent so if your whole house smells like the toilet they’ll think they can pee anywhere. It’s also really important that you actively take your puppy to their litter tray even if they’re right next to it. It’s easy to think that because your puppy has free access to the litter tray you won’t need to take them. But you still need to put in a lot of effort to teach your puppy where they’re supposed to toilet.

Switching to outside toileting

Finally your puppy’s fully vaccinated and you need to teach them that they should now be toileting outside. Unfortunately, it’s now back to basics. You need to choose a specific spot outside your flat that you’ll take your puppy to for toileting. If you can, take some of whatever surface was in your puppy’s litter tray out and put it on their new outside toilet. This will help the new toilet smell of pee just like the old toilet and encourage your puppy to toilet there. You’ll need to take your puppy there very regularly - even if your puppy could hold it for 1 hour with the litter tray you’ll want to be taking them outside every 20-30 minutes.

You’ll need to teach your puppy they can toilet outside once they’re fully vaccinated

You might be thinking it was quite convenient for your puppy to toilet in your flat and having to take them outside every time they need to pee is a hassle. If you are, it’s perfectly ok to have your puppy using a litter tray forever. It’s still important to teach your puppy they can toilet outside. Otherwise your puppy won’t be able to toilet on walks and that can get really stressful for them when you start to take them out for longer walks.

Written by Juniper Indigo, dog trainer in Tiverton and Exeter