Question of the Week
This one's not so serious!

STUCK IN HIS LITTERBOX!

Scamp is doggie potty trained and has never gone in the house except in his litterbox...
but now I find I have had a hard time trying to get him to go potty outside when we go away !!!

FIRST IN! FROM KIM:

Okay, gotta start with a couple questions. Does the dog go outside at home at all or only in his litter box? What is the substance in the litterbox? Do they take that with them when they travel?

If he only uses his litterbox he may not want to go outside when on a trip cuz it is simply not the right place to potty. A couple options are:

1-train the dog to go potty outside in addition to his litterbox and teach him it is okay to go potty while on walks around the neighborhood (in potty safe areas and clean up after!!!)
2-take "travel litterboxes" with them. Hills canned pet food comes in cardboard trays wrapped in plastic. Ask they vet to collect a few for them and take them with the litterbox substrate with them on their trips. The cat food cases are nice and small and would make for easy travel. Then they can simply pitch them in the garbage.

Oh, and put the "go potty" on an actuall command. Start in the house when she uses her box and then transfer it to the outside. That way she will understand what the owners want.

AND CATHY!

There are probably a jillion people who would kill to have this problem with their dog. If you do want him to be able to go in his litter box and outside, I think I would start by placing another litter box outside where you want him to go. Whenever you think he needs to go, I would take him outside to his box. He's already accustomed to going in the box, so getting him to use it outside should be just a question of repetition -- and you will have to really watch him a lot over the course of this training. Always always use lots of verbal praise and a cookie here and there to a hungry little dog probably won't hurt either. After he is reliably using the box outside in a few locations, as well as inside, you could take a paper towel or a small piece of newspaper and put it in the box so he gets used to going on the paper towel -- when he's going on the paper towel in the box, I would take away the box and get him used to going just on the paper towel in the yard. It serves as a target that you can gradually make smaller and smaller so that over time, instead of an 8x10 piece of paper towel, you are using a target no bigger than a matchbook. You are very close now to fading the target away completely. You should be doing this all on leash the whole time, and taking off the leash after he's gone. When you fade the target totally, you now have a dog that will go on cue outside and in the litterbox inside. If this doesn't work, you can always use a 2 x 4 and beat the "shit" out of him when he's outside.

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Here's my short and sweet response (like Cathy's better ... well except for that last part! *L*!):

My recommendation for transitioning your darling boy from an indoor litterbox to places away from home would be to move the litterbox outside - once he will "ask" to go outside to use it, then fade the box and just put his preferred litter on the ground. Next, first thing in the morning when you KNOW he has to "go", carry him to the car, take him to a nearby park or neighbor's yard and sprinkle his litter there. Take your morning coffee, a lawn chair and a good book and park yourself there til you get results (pack a sack lunch if you think it might take that long!) When you do, have a party!

Dogs imprint on the surface smell - away from home he's not finding his target smell, so he waits. You can gradually "fade" the target by using less and less litter as a target. But hauling a baggy of litter on vacation will be far easier than taking his litter box! The other possible complication is that he isn't on-leash with you watching when he uses his litterbox. So you may have to add your presence to his routine. He may just be unable to "go" with an audience.