Me again... When I let my 8 week puppy out to go to the toilet in the garden, I think she gets distracted so easily that she forgets to go! She'll sniff around but then find a stone/blade of grass/bit of mud that's loads more interesting to eat/chew/dig. We are following Pippa's guide of distracting rather than reprimanding so I'll then distract her with a chew toy or by moving away/beginning puppy recall. Problem is that's still a distraction away from toileting! What do other people do in the garden when waiting for their puppy to go to the toilet and they do something undesirable like begin digging or chewing on stones? Is it because we've been in the garden with her and done fun things rather than just letting her out to the toilet?
I had precisely this with my puppy. I wrote a post about it! https://thislittledoggy.com/2016/12/27/toilet-training/ I then bought a little guinea-pig pen for the garden. It worked wonders. There's a picture of it on this post: https://thislittledoggy.com/2017/01/16/this-little-doggy-goes-dark/
When I first got my puppy it was winter time and I would carry her out to the garden in the cold/dark/rain! She then got braver and started wandering, picking up stuff I'd rather she didn't have - not the best of times! I started putting her lead on and she quickly caught onto lead=wee/poo. I still do this now at regular intervals and she automatically does what she has to do. I now drop the lead when she's gone and she follows me back in.
I use a spending pen - the puppy gets to go in the garden as a reward They very quickly wee and then go to the gate. I also teach them to wee on cue, but this takes a few weeks. Yes - I do need the chair in the early days
So your puppy does wees or poos on the concrete? At the moment, because of where my puppys main puppy pen is she can do her toileting on concrete or grass... Is this ok?
You will probably find that the grass gets damaged where the puppy goes - the wee will make the grass go brown and the tramping on the same bit of grass over and over will wear it down. With my puppy, I was on fake grass at first (brilliant for pups!) but, when I moved and had to be on real grass, just moved the pen every day to a different position. It wasn't nice, because it was in the winter, and the grass was poor condition because of a lack of light, so the mud came through really quickly. Assuming you're in summer time where you are, you shouldn't have quite the same problem. With the concrete, it's quite porous usually, so you have to be fastidious in cleaning it so it doesn't start to smell. I believe @Boogie swills it down with a bucket of water with Simple Solution added after every wee?
Yes, they are fine on concrete, gravel or grass so long as you start them young. I use a watering can with a very dilute mix of bio gel (the stuff you wash clothes with) and swill every wee - no smell at all.
