Hi Everyone, I'm trying to get my 13 week old puppy used to puppy pads for when we have to start work. The only problem is, all she wants to do is rip any and all of them to shreds. Do any of you have any advice on how to get her to leave them alone? Is it worth spraying some dog chew repelent spay on the corners of the pad? Thanks for the advice.
Unless its an absolute necessity , I wouldn't ever advise puppy pads as they tend to give out the wrong message , in that its fine to pee and poo indoors , creating a habit that then has to be retrained at a later stage . How long are you planning on leaving puppy for ? is someone available to come and let her out to pee and poo , plus a play and feed ? She will still be on four meals a day so will need someone to be on hand . There will be accidents , its bound to happen , but a washable floor is honestly much better than using pads which, as you are discovering , tend to get ripped to shreds !
We have her confined to our kitchen right now which is washable. Also we can get home every 3 hours or so, which is just a little too long for her peeing right now. She poos fairly reliably about 2 times a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. We don't have someone who can get her during the day since we dont have faimily close by and are somewhat off the betten path for a dog walker. Would it be better to just acknowlage that she will have some accidents in the kitchen for a while and clean them up when we come home?
I think that would be better to be honest . It will save the ripped pads and save having to train twice , good luck x
Thanks for the advice, I do agree that would be easier, I didnt know anything could shred that pad into as many pieces as she did
Puppy pads are supposed to smell in a way that encourages a puppy to wee on them. If that's not working, or the puppy rips them up before they are used, then there is absolutely no point to them. There is certainly no point in 'training' a puppy to go on them. I'd also stop worrying about toilet training - put your puppy on a washable floor whenever you might not be able to get her outside on time and clean up any accidents. It's no big deal. I would worry about what care you have in place for your puppy when you are working. Toilet training is neither here nor there - you'll cope with that even if it takes a little bit longer. But what is your puppy going to be doing when you are at work? Nothing? That's not ok. And popping back in the day doesn't cut it. You need to arrange care for your puppy while you work.
Thanks for the advice as well Julie. Right now for care we are sort of scrambling, originally we were told we could not take her home for another month, but we got a surprise call from the shelter saying we could take her early, which means we don't quite have enough of her vaccinations done to put her in doggy daycare during the day like our original plan. Our current plan is for me to use vacation and my wife to use her lunch break to stop home for an hour or so of walking, playtime etc until she is up to date on vaccines. After that we plan on sending her to daycare. We have also been getting some of the interactive toys as well as other toys in order to keep her occupied when we can't be there.
That's good news you have plans - I'm sure everyone, including the pup, will cope for a little bit. Best of luck with it.
Hi and welcome. I tried puppy pads once then decided it wasn't worth it. What is pups name? Girl or boy? Sounds like you've got good plans in place going forward. Lots of us on here work but ensure that the pups have plenty of walks / dog walkers coming in / day care.
Her name is Snuffles (a fairly deep Harry Potter reference). My profile picture is a picture we took the first weekend with her durring a cuddle session. So far that appears to be her favorate activity along side chewing on our hands, arms, cloths, etc when shes in psyco mode. This is our first dog, so all of this has been a bit of a blur and frantic effort to figure out what to do.
I didn't use puppy pads but I used something similar, like absorbent pads used for changing babies on, but with the same consistency as puppy pads (a bit like incontinence pads). But I mainly used newspaper on top of the pad (s) - my pup didn't chew either despite chewing everything else in sight! I don't know if the pads I used were infused with any particular chemical which may have deterred (or encouraged) chewing/ripping them up. And they also didn't delay toilet training, although I was ready for that to be the case. I was probably lucky but she only did a wee or poo on the paper/pads overnight and rarely in the day and I only placed paper/pads by the back door, not over the whole floor.
Puppy pads are very useful - for cleaning up lakes of wee They're very absorbent and your fingers don't get wet. Followed by a good spray of Simple Solution to eliminate the odour, of course. But, yes, left on the floor, they are easy playthings for pups
Hi there, Bless her in a shelter at such an early age I'm glad you were able to take her out of that situation.Options will open up more when she's fully vaccinated ,good luck managing in the meantime Best Wishes Angela
A friend of mine bought some pieces of turf and put them in a large cat little tray for her pup when she had to work.
You might want to consider a closed dog crate for the night time, to help her settle.Pups are loath to toilet in their sleeping area, so a great help for toilet training. Crates are marvellous things, and quickly evolve into a safe area for pups and older dogs alike. A good scenario if you are leaving pup for any length of time is a crate plus playpen combo. This will help bladder control when you are able to be around to toilet train and can use just the crate, plus a much more convenient "clearing up" area with access to the playpen when not around. With pups less is more, and they are often more settled in a smaller area, and they are more comfortable with a defined area then roaming a whole kitchen, where they are more likely to get into trouble further down the line.
Thanks for the advice everyone, we have her set up with a crate in the kitchen, today she went pee in both the far end from her crate and in her open crate . Hopefully the crate will just be a one time thing. Ether way she seems to do better given free range of our somewhat small kitchen area, but probably doesn't understand where to pee yet. Hopefully she will do ok and get better in the coming week or so.
my puppy hated his pads. we even tried the fake turf and he would just rip out the plastic grass so we stopped using them. thank god he likes to go on real grass and is 99% potty trained now. i did feed him for a while in his crate so he wouldn't pee/poo inside.
After picking up the remains of six puppy pads, I gave up and used them to mop up any accidents! Although oddly enough we had one by the back door which Bailey left completely alone - unless we missed his signal to go out and he actually went and had a wee on it! Odd pup I don't think it delayed his toilet training at all, as I cleaned up with an enzyme cleaner (following the instructions unlike my OH ) and learnt his signal that he needed to go out - it took a while for him to train me that his Children of the Corn stare meant he needed to go out!
I use puppy pads at the end of the puppy pen overnight for the first three or four nights. After that I cut them into four for mopping up accidents.
