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08-27-2009, 05:29 PM | #1 |
Donating YT 500 Club Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: upstate ny
Posts: 5,847
| House Training puppies.... I promised I would post the techniques I used to make potty training easier for puppies. I want to just say that as breeders, I think we have an obligation to start right from the beginning training puppies to become good family members. One of the most important things you can do is to make house training as easy as possible. With that in mind, I did some research and I have to say that this was not my idea but a compilation of ideas I had read about on other sites. When the pups are first born, the mom potties them but once the reach about 3 weeks they start moving around and no longer want to go potty where they sleep but start moving to the farthest spot away from where they sleep. With that in mind, I used artificial grass in 1/3 of the whelping box. The 1/3 that was farthest from their "bed". As they grew out of their whelping box and into an xpen, the artificial grass moved with them, taking up about a quarter of the xpen. Finally they moved to a small room in my house blocked off with the xpen and the artificial grass (now using the potty patch) became a small area about the size of a door mat in one corner of the room not too close to where they sleep or eat. These puppies use that grass mat 100% of the time when they are blocked in the kitchen. When they have free run of my downstairs they occasionally go potty on my door mat which is close to the grass mat and a similar color. (my fault - I should have thought that out a little better when I bought it.) I never ever yell at them if they have an accident. If I can catch them about to go on the wrong mat, I move them to the correct grass mat and praise them. If I catch them going on the grass mat on there own (and I do alot), I praise them alot. That's really all I do. Does anyone else have any ideas they would like to share? I think it's really important for these guys to have some basic training before going off to their new homes..... |
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08-27-2009, 07:54 PM | #2 |
Donating YT 5000 Club Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Southeast Texas
Posts: 7,959
| That sounds interesting. What do you mean by 'grass mat'? Are those the rubber mats that are artificial grass? How do you clean them and how often? I saw that AKC sells some artificial grass system that has a tray under them that catches the pee. They are awfully expensive though. |
08-28-2009, 10:12 AM | #3 |
Donating YT 500 Club Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: upstate ny
Posts: 5,847
| I bought the potty patch but the tray was too big to fit in the whelping box so I just used the piece of grass itself that came with it. (The whole potty patch cost me $40) I also bought a cheap grass mat at the local hardware store. It has the rubber backing that you would expect with a door mat and was the size of a large door mat it is almost flat and is obviously fake grass unlike the potty patch which almost looks real. That was $5.99 and I used that as well. Now I just use the potty patch in the tray in a corner of my kitchen and they do really good with it. I use a pee pad right now between the grass and the tray since they pee so little, I'm afraid the pee would try before I had a chance to empty it since they pee so little right now. I soak the actual grass about once a week in the tub with bleach and then leave outside in the sun for a bit to dry. I eventually would like to get more of that grass so that I could interchange them a bit. Obviously, I pick up the poop as soon as I see it. I hope that all makes sense..... |
08-28-2009, 10:22 AM | #4 | |
Donating YT 5000 Club Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Southeast Texas
Posts: 7,959
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08-28-2009, 11:48 AM | #5 |
Donating YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Metairie Louisisna
Posts: 1,088
| Thanks for the advice tjdmom!!! |
09-01-2009, 10:00 AM | #6 |
Donating YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: hannacroix,ny
Posts: 1,363
| As a customer I appreciate her effort in this. It is so much easier to train a new puppy that has gone through this experience. It just so happens that my fenced in back yard is covered by indoor-outdoor carpeting (because of the amount of ticks that carry lyme disease in my area) and it was a breeze to get Wyatt to go outside on this carpeting. He has gone outside since the day I brought home. I have had many puppies in my life but never one that trained this easily. I have another Yorkie who has always held it until he got "inside" to his pee pads. Wyatt is teaching Widget to go outside. Widget doesn't always go outside but at least it is a start. Thanks Theresa |
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