keep dogs outside, but what about winter?

abbey2000

Hi there,

My partner and I have two puppies, a mini schnauzer and schnoodle (schnz. poodle cross). We currently keep them out in the garden while we are at work. They have a kennell, their toys and we leave them enough food and water.

I am worried about winter tho. I think its going to be to cold for them to be out. We were thinking of keeping them inside, and giving them the run of the kitchen and utility (both tiled areas, and both would be dog proofed).

Problem is, while they are both toilet trained and do not pee in the house if we are there, when they are alone and in the kithen/utility are, they pee anywhere on the floor. We do put paper on the floor in the utility for them at night for them to pee on, and they always use it, but the are confined to the utility at night for bed.

We have tested and left them for an hour in the kitchen/utility while we went out. We leave paper down in the utility , but one of them would have pee'd on the kitchen floor when we get back.

Is it possible to train them to pee on the paper for when we are not there? I really couldnt face coming home from work and having to mop pee and poo off the kitchen floor every day. They would have walked all through it and I can only begin to imagine the scene I would face every day.

They are only 5 and 4 months old, and as i say, they will pee outside on command when we bring them out. the winter worries me as i do not know what we can do with them. does anyone have any advice?

star-pants

I too wouldn't like to leave them outside in the cold but if it's during the day they should be ok. Have you lined the kennel and put waterproofing on the top? If it's a decent kennel with the entrance facing away from the wind and if you put in some sheeps wool type stuff they'll be warm enough in there I'd say. It's different if at night you wish to bring them in but during the day it'd be better for them to be outside/access to outside but also have somewhere warm to curl up in (ie the lined kennel).

population

Yeah pack that kennel with as much blankets and insulation as you can

abbey2000

i havent lined the kennel but i can certainly do this. thing that would worry me is they would try to pull it off. i usually leave a blanket in the kennel for them now, but when i get home thats out in the garden somewhere.

the schnauzer in particular likes to pull and bite things. im afraid she would rip off any insulating i would do. thats why i was considering keeping them in during the winter.

polyfusion

I don't think our winters are that particularly hard that you'd need to be worried about leaving them outdoors during the day. As long as they have somewhere dry and out of the wind (face the door of the kennel towards a wall) they should be fine, they are wearing fur coats after all! Also, I believe in feeding them extra during the winter as well, give them a bit of extra body fat, they need it when going out for walk or hike anyway.

Of course there are some days that might be particularly icy, and mine would be indoors those days, and during all nights during the winter (even with the hot weather we had a few weeks ago, I still kept mine in during the night). I also think lining the kennel is a bit overkill, can lead to musty conditions as the kennel needs to breathe too, and might be detrimental to the health of the animal.

abbey2000

ok, so leaving them out in winter seems to be the general concensus. but what about some of the very icy days when i want to leave them in?

they are toilet trained and picked it up very quickly, but when they are in, is it possible to train them to pee on paper that i would leave out? they do pee on the paper only in the utility at night, they never pee anywhere else in the utility. im just wondering if its possible to get them to do this during the day to, because currently they dont.

if i leave the kitchen and utility open for them, with papers down in their usual spot in the utility, they just pee on the kitchen floor. i just dont want to come home to a crap fest after work!