Can't decide; outdoor vs. pee pads

[yavenay]

I use a combination of both potty pads and outdoors. I live alone in a 3 story town home. Getting up in the middle of the night to go down 3 flights of stairs was a problem for me. I could never really fall back to sleep.

In my case the potty pads work for me when I'm at work during the day and at night. When I am at home, she gets frequent walks and has no problems peeing and pooping outside. In the case of bad weather (which she hates) potty pads are the answer. At friends house, again it's a non issue because she also goes outside. I know to walk her a few minutes after she eats and then she is good for about 5 hours.

So it really depends on your own personal situation and tolerances. I found the combination of potty pads and going outside work best for me. In either case each have their advantages and disadvantages. You have to decide which you want to deal with.

[Verbena]

Galen is trained with both. . Everyone has their preference . . You need to figure what is best for the both of you

[Potter]

It is up to you but once a dog has been trained to use pee pad, it is harder to train to pee outside later on in life. Mine started from pee pad because we lived in a condo 38 floors high and I was sickly back then so pee pad naturally was the best choice.

Now that we live in a home, he loves going out in the backyard for his business but when it snows, we need to shovel a path for him otherwise he won't go. He is not able to hold throughout the night so I do put a belly band on for him just for the night because my house is covered in carpet. If you do live in wooded area though I think pee pad would make more sense just because it would probably be dangerous to let a small dog out at night.

[theporkieyorkie]

I'd say it depends on your dog and your circumstance. Even if your dog goes outside in a secure fenced in yard, u should never leave it unattended. Birds of prey can snatch them up and other wild animals can get them.....not to mention people stealing them.


I have one trained on potty pads and the other doesn't use them and is supposed to go outdoors. The fact that my other guy uses pee pads has confused him and he now thinks my whole house is a toilet....but that's a whole different issue in itself

[smelcerk]

Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply to this thread. The information was invaluable to me. Mia arrived three days ago and has taken to her potty training like a champion. Each day is getting better and better. I am crate training her and take her outside about every 1.5 to two hours. Set her on the grass and say go potty. Day 1, she did not go potty outside at all. I think she literally hit every spot of carpet in the house. Day 2 I decided to do crate training. She was about 50%. Day 3, (today), she as only had one poop accident in the house and that was after peeing outside. I thought she was done but apparently I did not give her enough time. I am very pleased with her progress. Not getting cocky but feeling quite hopeful.

[DBlain]

I am surprised that so many of you have pups that can not make it through the night, I would hate that since it would be hard for me to fall back asleep.

I have a question for those that paper train, can you get your dog to potty on command? The last thing I do before going to bed is to put Lola out to potty, and she knows to go. For my last pup that was paper trained I kept a litter box with papers in my laundry room which I could close, so if we were going anywhere or at night before bed I would put him in the room close the door and he would go 99% of the time. But for those of you that have the pads in an area that you can't close up I was wondering how you get them to go potty before going for a car ride or when it's time for bed.

[matese]

outside training VS pee pads. Keep this in mind, if you train foroutside potty only, come rain, shine, sleet, snow, hail you will always have to walk the pup. I speak from experience. When I lived in NY (Da Bronx) , back in the mid 90's , I had at that time 3 pups, we had a major blizzard, jobs shut downs, store closing, 4 feet of snow, and me with 3 dogs that needed to be walked lol. They were walked at 7:30AM every morning, but this day the sidewalks were not shoveled so we had to wait lol, at 9AM some side walks were cleared, streets were not yet plowed. But out we all went lol. It's a commitment when we choose to house break for outside only. I never regretted my decision to outside potty train. My lil adopted boy is outside potty trained, last winter was a bad snow, ice filled one, I had to shovel paths for my lil guy, when it rains he won't go out lol, I own my own home now, so shoveling falls on me lol, I was able to get him to use my very large deck in bad weather or when it rains as I have a 8 x 16 roof over my backdoor, so the prince discovered he will not get wet when it rains. I do not want anymore pee paper / pads in my laundry room any more, so I do what must be done to have my boy go outside. It's your choice. Yearssssss back when I had my first poodle, she was paper trained because I was afraid she would pick up doggie disease's even tho she had all her shots, she was my very first dog as an adult, just like your very first baby, over protective. She came with me and NOT so DH lol every where, no matter who I went to visit, the pup came along and so did the pee pee paper. I never want to have to go through that again, reason I opted to house break out outside potty only.

[LuvMyYorky]

We lived in apt. when we brought Letty home. I kennel trained and took her out frequently. I also picked up her water bowl after a certain time at night. A month in we bought the potty patch to have as an option for our convenience. I would watch for signals like going to door or circling and I would hold her on patch using key word potty. If she went I would give her a treat. If she didn't go, I would keep an eagle eye on her or put her back in kennel since I knew she wouldn't go in there. Then let her out and straight to patch again with treat in hand to give if she used it.

We have no confusion and now have house on acreage. We still have patch in house and like it as when we go to visit family, we take it with and she knows to look for it. She is always a welcomed guest and I have no problem getting someone to dig watch when we cruise

I don't recommend using leash, I'd stick to the harness when outside. It is much better for their little necks and avoids damage to throat. I agree with what DBlain said about going out but not letting them wander around when harnessed to go potty. Take them where you want them to go and eventually they will almost always go to same place. After they go you can let them off lead to play and run. Then they look forward to going potty and getting it out if the way so they get treat and free time

Side note... Since we kennel trained and took outside our pup would not use pee pads when we tried to introduce as an option. We had to use potty patch as it felt like the grass she'd become used to.

[paul514]

I say go with outdoors (granted I live in Southern Florida where it's always hot). When I got my puppy, she had been pad trained, but I just found the idea of a dog going indoors a bit gross and somewhat unnatural (aren't dogs supposed to enjoy the outdoors?). She always went on the pads, but once in a while she'd miss the target by a bit and there'd be drops outside of the pad.

I read all of these horror stories about how hard yorkies were to potty train, but honesty that was not my experience at all. I crate trained her just as I did my lab. I got her on a schedule, and progressively kept her in her crate for longer periods of time and within a few weeks she was good to go. Also, she's never gone during the night, and a few weeks ago I began leaving her crate unlocked at night as an experiment. She only had a single accident in her crate the first day. She's about seven months now and she has never gone inside, I couldn't imagine her going on my throw rugs.

Finally, every time I let her out she likes to walk around (always with her harness) and it's good exercise for both of us.

[LuvMyYorky]

I washed Letty's pee patch once a week. I put the pee pad in the bottom of the tray and changed it out every two days.

[LuvMyYorky]

Originally Posted by DBlain

I am surprised that so many of you have pups that can not make it through the night, I would hate that since it would be hard for me to fall back asleep.

I have a question for those that paper train, can you get your dog to potty on command? The last thing I do before going to bed is to put Lola out to potty, and she knows to go. For my last pup that was paper trained I kept a litter box with papers in my laundry room which I could close, so if we were going anywhere or at night before bed I would put him in the room close the door and he would go 99% of the time. But for those of you that have the pads in an area that you can't close up I was wondering how you get them to go potty before going for a car ride or when it's time for bed.

With Letty, because we crate trained and took her out side first, she has preferred to go out side. She used the potty patch if we missed her signal or honestly when it was freezing in the morning and I didn't want to get fully dressed to go down four flights of stairs in apt. She would wake me up, I'd tell her potty and she'd act hyper like saying yes. I'd carry her to door open/close it and then put her in the patch and say go potty. If she went their was praise and treats. If she didn't go right away I just kept putting her back on it, petting her and encouraging. Was pretty easy honestly. I also only use done potty patch.

My mom uses pee pads all over her house and I think that confuses them. Hers are two now and still pee and poo everywhere. My family has no problems when I brought pee patch over and put where they desired. They felt reassured there would be no accidents.