Need advice on pee pad training from those with fully trained yorkies! Hi, I'm a new YT member and my new baby girl will be coming home in about 2 weeks! :D I'd like to have a solid potty training plan before she comes home and would appreciate any input from those of you who have been successful in training your puppies to use pee pads. I do understand that this will be a long process and need some input on the best way to do it. My plan right now is to use a play pen since I've read that it's best to keep them contained to a small area until they're fully trained. I will put the pee pad (I'll be using Pooch Pads, the washable pads) on one end of the pen and her bed, food toys, etc. at the other end. I will be home to monitor the puppy and encourage pee pad use. When she is playing outside of her pen I will bring her onto her pee pad for potty breaks. If anyone can offer suggestions or tell me what you did please let me know! I'm open to anything including suggestions that don't include use of a play pen at all. Also, if I train her to use a pee pad in the pen, might she be confused when it's time to expand outside of the pen and not be able to find her pee pad in a larger space? |
Lol, I see you only want advice from those with fully trained Yorkies, so you might not get much. Seriously, it sounds like you have a good plan, Joey was kept in a playpen when I couldn't watch him and I think he was paper trained with the breeder because he seemed to just go for the pee pads. However out of the play pen it was a different story, and he didn't seem to want to seek out the pad, but I could tell by his little circling behavior that he was looking for a place, and that's when I would place him on the pad. Puppies are like toddlers, and you have to keep your eyes on them when they are out of the pen, this doesn't mean watching TV and keeping an eye on them, this means keeping both eyes on them. Joey had an easier time learning to use the pad on the wood floor than in rooms where there was carpet. He slept in a little kennel till he was trained, and I would wake up every couple of hours and put him on the pad. I think the kennel is easiest to train with, and he caught on fairly fast that the pads were where to go. We were duel training him for a while and placing him outside in the morning and at night, so he goes outside as well, when he want to. I think this site has some very good tips for housebreaking your dog, and you can do it several ways, crate training or no crate, indoor or pee pad, and it comes up with a plan for you. Housebreaking vs Paper Training and Other Indoor Potty Training Methods. Here's the method for indoor potty training. Indoor Potty Training - Papers, Pee Pads, Litter Boxes and more |
Yes, it does sound like you have a good plan, that is kinda what I did. I used a PEN and a crate in my kitchen for the first year. I couldn't have successfully potty trained without the crate. I put the pen up and where the door to the pen was located I placed the crate. On the other side of the Pen i placed a washable potty pad. This is good so they won't rip it up and of course you can save some money this way. When my boy was out of the Pen I kept my eye on him at all times. that way he could never potty in the house. The pen also helps to teach them not to chew on the baseboards. I also took my boy out on a schedule. After every meal and of course I took him out on other occasions as well. It did take me about a year and a half to fully train my boy. I had to actually use the crate for this to. My boy was really hard to train. Now that he is 4 he is fully trained and he would never think of going inside. :D I actually no longer use the crate and he now has full roam of the house. I have such a good little boy!! :) |
We have puppies right now and they use washable pads in their playpen...when they are out I keep one on the floor for them to use and they don't have any trouble finding it. They also go outside with the 'big dogs' and will go potty outside too. I bought 2 of the floor protectors at Petsmart...they are for the disposable pads but they will also hold the washable ones. I bought the ones that were something like $22.00 each...they look better than the other ones and the top clamps down so they can't drag the pad around. When you start training her take a pad and wipe up one of her pee-pees with it...that will give the pad the scent she needs to learn to use them. Once she gets that down you're good...I don't have any trouble with mine, in fact, all of mine are potty pad trained and outside trained...makes it perfect for bad weather days. :) |
I will tell you about Tobey- he was pretty easy to potty pad train really and we didn't even have that goal in mind. The only thing that stunk in the end, was the location of the pad but I will get to that so you see why. When I was home with him, we did the crate training. if I took him out of the crate it was directly to the potty pad which at first was in the garage because it was January and there was snow on the ground and he was only 8 weeks old. after he went potty, then he would be allowed to play, but in a limited area. I kinda cleared out my living room so I could have 2 beach towels layed down side by side as his "play zone" he had to stay on the towels. this kept him from wandering in other rooms and me having to chase after. I could sit on the floor and play with him and if he looked like he needed to potty, I could catch it quick enough to wisk him off to the potty pad. He got about 30 minutes of play time outside and then back in the crate for a little while- of course with feedings and all that too. at night, I would set his crate on my night stand so he could see me and i could hear him. if he cried and pawed at the door to go out, I took him to the potty pad. I showed no emotion because he needed to learn that the reason you get out of the crate is because you are either quiet or you need to potty. If he went potty, and still whined a little in the crate, I knew he was just being fussy. It was a lot of work. I probably got up 3 times a night for about 3-4 weeks. I had several days off when I first brought him home which helped (like 4 days) and then I had to make a plan for what to do when I went to work because he wouldn't be able to hold it and I didnt want him to ever pee in his crate. So we decided to have him in our kichen- a pretty spacy area and we put his pad in there underneath a counter top where a chair normally would be. Then he had blankets and food and water. This when well. But this is where the location of the potty mat becomes important. He eventually learned jump up to the top of the baby gate and pull himself over and hop down on the other side. Luckily my husband was working on school work in the other room. It eventually became apparent that maybe we didn't need the gate. but what we were stuck with was that his potty place was in our kichen. After about 5 weeks he started just sleeping in our bed and he would go to the end of the bed and whine to get down, I would set him on the floor and he would walk right through the living room, in to the kichen and go potty on his pad. he knew where it was because that is where it had been all along. So, If I had to do it all over again, I would probably first think about the location of the potty pad and then section them off in that room, or use a ex-pen or whatever. But that again was only for the 8 hours I wasn't home. I would say at night, take away the pen so you can interatct for the evening but keep working on potty training- I still used the crate method. The thing I have learned is that one a potty pad has it's established place, it is very hard to change it to another location. Tobey was 100 percent potty trained after I got home from a vacacation in mid March when my husband told me that he now can hop down by himself at night and goes to potty on his own. So we brought him home on January 20th so it was about 2 full months of working really hard. but I was a brandnew dog owner and wanted to do everything right like all the books say, so I worked my butt off- otherwise I am sure it could take forever for them to get the hang of things. Now I am starting all over again in some ways because we just moved into a friend's townhouse with wall to wall cream carpeting. out old house had all hardwood floors. so he's been piddling here and there and using his pad in right spot about %60 of the time. so that is frustrating but I am sure It will get better. |
Thank you! Your stories give me a lot of great ideas - especially because everyone seems to have a slightly different experience. Thanks for the link Nancy1999 - very helpful! Which of these plans sounds like a better bet: -Keeping puppy in a playpen with pee pad on one side and bed, toys, food on the other until the puppy is older and faithfully going on pee pad. or -blocking of the kitchen with baby gates and keeping the puppy contained in that room with her crate, food and toys. Putting her pee pad in the bathroom (off the kitchen) and keeping her in her crate when I cannot keep a close eye on her, then taking her to that pee pad on a schedule just like you would a puppy being brought outside. This way, when the gates all eventually come down and she has access to the rest of the house, the pee pad will still be in the bathroom and she'll (hopefully) know to go there to potty. Thanks for your help! :) Love reading the stories - if anyone else wants to share their experience... |
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