307. The crate is his den, the assistant said.

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore

Before I met the pet shop owner at the Bukit Panjang Shopping Mall (Blog No. 306), I had spoken to his assistant regarding toilet training. An Indian man who has such a good command of Chinese dialects and Mandarin. Keen, energetic and enthusiastic.


The shop recommends the crate with pee pan below. This crate has a door.

What does the assistant recommend?

"The puppy should use the crate as his den," he said. "Put newspapers outside the crate and that will be the toilet location. The crate has a door, so the puppy can get out to pee on the papers."

This was a new concept to me.

"The puppy will not pee or poop inside his eating and sleeping area, right?" the assistant told me.

"Yes," I said. Well, this concept worked for the assistant's dog. There are more than one way to use the crate. It works if you have time to train the puppy.

What he described is probably a modification of the CRATE TRAINING method. I had never thought of using the crate and door and pee tray as a den. This is the surprise of toilet training research as I get different points of view.