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Originally Posted by Susanleet  Hey, hope everyone is well! I have to be honest in that I have not read the entire thread. I have an 8 week old that does not stay in a crate. I use an exercise yard...found it at babies r us. I have a piece of linoleum from home depot under to protect the floor. He is using news paper with pee pads under, that is spread out in 2/3 of the pen which I will make smaller over time. I hope that I will one day be able to litter train him. I really am not concerned with going outdoors since he will remain somewhat small . I also have a potty patch I bought from petsmart. The reviews online for the "as seen on tv" potty patch were impressive so I thought I would try it. So...am I doing something wrong by not using a crate? Not really wanting him to go outdoors to do his business? Does anyone else litter train? I figure if a litter box is good enough for my 20 pound cat, my little Henry baby can make it work. |
I got my girl 3 weeks ago and started crate training her at 9 1/2 weeks old when I got her. I didn't actually train her to go into the crate, I made her go in there nicely and made sure she had toys, her food and water bowl, and the crate is big enough for her to walk around, stand up in, have a sleepy area, her food, ect. I put her in there, shut the door and she whined for a few minutes and realised the crate is good, now she runs in there to sleep if I have her out about in the house...She knows its her den lol.
She hasn't once peed or pooped in her crate. I'm a housewife though so I am home all day to listen for her cue's, and she gets a lot of free time out for play time/exercise time. I bought her a potty patch like thing, not the same brand but similar...I have it in my spare bathroom where I want her to go because I live right off the ocean and my grass is not fenced, when the tide comes in it can be very dangerous so I don't want her outside roaming on the beach to pee and poo! She goes on her potty patch 90% of the time, there are still accidents, usually a few inches away from it or somewhere else ( my fault! ) if I'm not paying attention. So here's what I've done so far... I'm still learning myself! lol :P
So she'll be in the crate all night I wake up twice hearing her whine to let her go pee pee, she's small so it's not surprising she has to go, the breeder told me his puppies are night pee'ers and made a joke about one of his puppies that went to someone else that called him up complaining about how they're like newborn babies at night haha. So everytime she has to go, day or night I pick her up out of her crate, give her lots of kisses and greet her...Carry her to the bathroom where I have the 'potty patch'. I use a pee pad inside the potty patch thing, and also put a pee pad under it now since she sometimes misses the grass thing by a few inches and hits the floor, it's been better that way. Everytime she has to potty she goes to the potty patch, she knows the bathroom is where everyone else in the house does their business and where she does it too. I place her on it and keep putting her on it if she roams around sniffing the floor, until she pees on the patch. When she goes peepee on it I give her a potty only treat like dried liver. She associates that favourite treat of hers with potty only, from that they learn everytime they go on the potty patch or litter box they get a treat after releiving themselves.
If the puppy misses and goes near it, thats okay it means its trying and you should still reward the puppy, but don't reward the puppy for household mistakes outside of the area you want it go, and dont reward the puppy for going too far away from the spot and relieving without any warning. If you catch the puppy during playtime/outside crate time about ready to go, sniffing, crouching, ect. pick up the puppy take it to the potty patch, keep putting the puppy down on it until it goes if it tries to walk away from it, and give a treat. If puppy has an accident somewhere just clean it up, don't make a fuss or scold or even acknowledge it, just clean it and forget about it. Spray/wipe the area with disinfectant pet odour remover stuff, never anything ammonia based because they will think its pee still, so no bleach based cleaners!
Eventually, they will smell their peepee/poopoo on the area potty patch and over time they associate that's the place they have to go. It's really challenging but if you give treats and be consistent it will happen in no time at all. What helps is when you place the puppy on it, give them 1 treat, get them excited about it make them realise that even stepping on it means a treat. When they go, give lots of treats, like 2 or 3 at a time, like a jackpot reward, oh yeah they love that! Also praise them and give them little massage and scratchies, it gets them very happy and they feel proud.
To clean the potty patch, the grass part, stick it in the shower and squeeze dish soap on it, run it under the shower stream until the water runs clear off it. Do that once every couple days or once a week, whatever you feel is best. Shake it to dry it out and stick it back on the plastic frame thing. From my experience poop doesn't stick to the fake grass, I just pick it up with TP or a baby wipe and flush it because my girl will not go where there is already poop, she wont even pee on a spot if she sees a poop there she's picky about that.
Also I recommend using velcro under the fake grass on all four corners of the frame, puppys even the tiny ones grab it and pull it off the frame thinking its a toy to chew on, the velcro stops them from being able to do that! All you need is the adhesive kind, it sticks to it well even through washing, and if any edges of the grass fray just clip it off with scissors. If you ever need to replace it or want better grass the hardware/DIY store sells peices by the metre for a good price!
The reason why crates are great is because it limits the puppys access to where it can potty, and is a safe haven, thats it really. If you can give your puppy 100% attention or dont mind having papers/puppy pads in an xpen then thats fine too. In your case I think it would work good if you waited until the puppy finds a particular spot on the pee pads you have laid down in the x pen and as you slowly remove the pads and allow more freedom, stick the potty patch over the pad on his preferred spot. It might take some experimenting lol!
Another thing you can do, since you mentioned the xpen, put the potty patch at the furthest end away from the bed/crate side of the pen, put lots of toys on the floor between the two, thats the puppys play area and they wont pee right next to their toys for some reason..what they will do is go to the most available space which would be the potty patch.