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Puppy Long-term Confinement Toilet Area

  • 15-09-2020 12:26pm
    #1
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,632 ✭✭✭✭


    We will be trying short and long-term confinement for training our puppy.
    For long-term confinement we need to set up a toilet according to (Page 55)

    https://www.dogstardaily.com/files/BEFORE%20You%20Get%20Your%20Puppy.pdf

    The plan is for our dog to eliminate on grass and friends of ours have said it's best as a puppy to always pee/poo on grass.
    We'll try as best we can to get the puppy outside on schedule to eliminate in the designated area.

    But for those times we can't, what should we do regarding the puppy toilet area in his long-term confinement?
    Do we get some real grass sod on a tray?
    Using dog toilet Pads/sheets would conflict with the advice we've been given.
    Would a puppy view artificial grass as the same as the real thing?

    Apologies if this sounds a bit daft
    Tagged:


Comments

  • #2
    DBB
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,726 Mod ✭✭✭✭DBB


    The advice on Dog Star Daily is great, but can be a bit... well... aspirational at times :o I think a lot of it is aimed at the American, city-dwelling puppy owners, so many of whom keep their pups crated in their apartments for unseemly lengths of time. So, the authors possibly overstate what puppies need, to try to strike some sort of balance for the poor ole pups in such situations.
    Also, I think the available research is well established at this stage that pups should learn to pee on different surfaces, as it's now, during puppyhood, that they learn to discriminate between and about different substrates for peeing on, pooping on, walking on etc.
    It can be awkward to have an adult dog who refuses to go anywhere other than grass! For this reason, I'd take no issue with using gravel, sand, or woodchip in a tray, and as long as they're not relied on for general use, I wouldn't fall out with pee pads either. They can be very useful if your dog ever needs to be confined in a crate due to injury or an operation.
    New owners, or owners-to-be who put a lot of thought into how to raise their puppies are the bee's knees:), but at the same time, try not to overthink things either!


  • #3
    Cherry Blossom
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Regional North West Moderators Posts: 6,928 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cherry Blossom


    I tried the sod in a tray thing in my dog run which is on the patio when my boy was a pup. My dog the mess he made with that sod, he dug at it and it turned into mud. He pulled some of it into his kennel. I was very thankful I hadn’t tried it in my kitchen. I don’t recommend using a sod of grass as litter.


  • #4
    em_cat
    Registered Users Posts: 1,292 ✭✭✭em_cat


    I have to giggle when I think about the oddities some dogs have when it comes to toileting...our yorkie x has to be walked to poo, a bit like my OH, he absolutely will not go on our diy pea gravel fancy porch potty thingy, despite using fresh sod, installing a marking wall, growing tiny shrubs.... I think it comes from not marking his territory. Esmae uses the diy thing though and will go anywhere, be it concrete, sand grass, chips, tarmac, she won’t use artificial grass though. However we had a Havanese that only used artificial grass and that proved to be kind of funny b/c any artificial grass was game :) I have to say if I ever have another pup from puppyhood I will endeavour to get them to be as versatile as possible.


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