Much of this is training -- elevators ALONE are training (and start taking him to anyplace you can think of that has an elevator -- they are scarey for dogs until they learn how to deal with this darned room that moves!!!! And yes, learning you gotta 'sit' in the elevator cos other people get off and on -- TRAINING CURVE).
However, this is MY experience -- and I hate the whole litter/puppy pad thing that is out in full view -- it stinks, it can RUIN the flooring underneath if they hit the edge and it leaks under -- it will leech into the linoleum and you can't get the smell out. It can = damage deposit goes bye bye!!!
Back when I had Prissy I was a life-time apartment dweller. Yeah, midnight potty runs can get tense – just getting a dog to WAIT that long (i.e., getting down 23 floors in an elevator) can be difficult and a judgment call, not to mention the danger involved.
However, it also has to be something that Rascal is ‘ok’ with. This is a big training curve --and one you have to work on and it can be hard.
You’ve probably read this from me before – but years ago when I had Miss Priss she was an OLD girl. (like she lived to be almost 21 but this was during her years 9 - 15)
I was single and teaching and often work excruciating hours (by the time I was at school all day, then had to roll right into meetings and then evening church and sometimes later than that) -- occasionally I couldn’t get away to go home and let her out and she was there WAY too long.
SHE found her own workaround actually. She had been paper-trained originally (before I had her) and it was Prissy’s theory that if you REALLY had to go, just find something small, relatively square, and absorbent and it would work!! (Which could be anything from a throw rug a magazine, my sweater, etc. etc. etc.). Now – she was also extremely bright and when I’d come home and she had done something she *knew* was not quite ‘cool’ she would meet me at the door and beg me to follow her to "where-ever".
One night after a marathon day I was expecting a mess, but came home to her sitting prettily by the door with that "let me show you" look. She took me to the bathroom where, on the little rug in front of the toilet was her ‘mess’.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I thot that was pretty danged clever – she went to the right room, and as close as she could get to what the human did ... on something small and kinda rectangular and definitely absorbent!! I told her that was absolutely fine, apologized that *I* was so late.
However, no way was I going to the laundry room in an apartment complex at midnight! Nope – not that stupid!! So, I tipped the rug into the toilet to flush the poop, and tossed the rug in the bathtub to rinse it off. I just left it there because it was damp and and we went for our walk despite the fact that it was midnight.
Frankly, I forgot about the darned rug. I was tired so when we got back it never entered my mind to do anything else with that rug, and in the morning by the time I found it when I showered, I just put it back in there cos it was still a tad bit damp and .... I didn’t want a sour rug in the laundry basket either.
It was another marathon day (we were having some conference or something) and I got home again very late. Met at the door by another Miss Priss "come hither" look and I followed her into the bathroom thinking "Darn – and now the rug isn’t in front of the toilet!!"
Nope – no mess in front of the toilet. Good girl!! but nope – she was sitting in front of the TUB. I peeked in and ... yep, there on the rug lying in the tub was ... poop. And ... a little yellow trail leading down the drain. I’ll be darned!!
Repeated the ritual of the night before except I did a better job of washing the little rug, but again I left it in the tub. She and I had a little talk and I told her this was a GREAT PLACE she’d found to go!!
From then on I would leave folded paper towel in the bathtub when I knew it might get late. She would hop into the tub if she had to go, potty and cleanup was a BREEZE. A little Chlorox in the tub, flush the waste – far far easier than her soiling anywhere else.
This was before the days of puppy-pads-for-sale – but if Rascal has ever used one, you could simply pick a spot Rascal can get to and leave a puppy pad.
Prissy and I communicated well enough and she was old enough and well-trained enough by then that she never would soil until she absolutely had to. This didn’t break her housetraining at all. SHE was thrilled with the fact there wasn’t an ‘accident’ (she was extremely fastidious ... altho she could also be a little stinker if she decided *I* was remiss in not letting HER out!!).
From thereafter all I had to do was point to the tub after I’d put paper in there and say "I might be late – go here if you gotta!" -- but you could do something very similar for any emergencies after midnight. If I was doing it again I would put a couple of steps in front of the tub (Prissy was a pom/peke mix and this only didn’t work after she got too elderly to spring into the tub but by then I was in a house.)