Puppy pads yay or nay

[Sue]

Originally Posted by JudyC

The weather is so awful today. Despite being outside about a dozen times or more today there has been no success. I've cleaned up numerous pees and poops inside . Oh well early days yet.
I'm off to work at 1pm and DH takes over.

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It’s very early days, in my experience sometimes they just ‘get it’ one day.
You will always get mess overnight as they just cannot hang on that long.
You will all get there but as you say, not great weather. Thinking about it, we picked up Asha in November so must have had a similar experience

[Bellasmummy]

We were really lucky that Tinks breeder had pretty much already trained the pups to go outside.

She recommended we didn’t put pads down inside as it would be confusing to introduce them.

She’d used the words ‘be clever’ to get Tink to go outside and it worked a treat so we continued that.

Thankfully I think we had less than 5 accidents all told so she did really well.

If you’re using a command to get them to go outside the weather shouldn’t be too much of an issue as they’ll just go out do their business and come straight back rather than spend time exploring, that’s what we found when anyway.

[mitch84]

I didn’t have any night time accidents at all because I crate trained Max, and he never once went in his crate. The one bad thing about summer was that he did wake me at 5 for a wee, whereas my friend is crate training her cockerpoo that she got recently and he doesn’t wake til 7pm.
We did have day time accidents, not so much poo’s but he would get distracted and have a widdle, I think if you can’t watch them, pop in the crate. But again outside all the time, it does click one day I promise

[dannigizmo]

Pads didn't wrk for us. She just tore them to shreds 🤣and got her confused to peeing in the kitchen. Is hard in winter though and if a had a flat I would have persevered with them.

If u want to get them try and just do what works for y and yer pup. Enjoy its amazing thou a found the first few weeks tough with poor sleep wrking from home etc but goe easier of course.

Congrats on yr new addition. 😀

[Pumpkin Pie]

My sons puppy is almost 6 months old and we look after it while they are at work. We have never used pads and have only had two accidents in our house (and a few in their house) but that was really early on when he was really young. Never at night - he is put in a crate.

He was always taken out soon as he woke up and also after feeding. He doesn’t seem to mind the weather and now if he needs to go he walks to the back door in both our houses to let us know.

He is not perfect though - he chews everything!

[ChoppyGirl]

We have a 3 year old GSD and didn’t use puppy pads and she never had an accident.

We think using them encourages the dog to wee inside as they thinks that’s being good whereas you want them to learn that going inside is not good and you want them to go outside.

You just have to be prepared to let them out constantly, especially after eating, drinking and waking up.

[Harry]

Never had puppy pads with any of our pups... occasional sheet of newspaper maybe... we spend the time outside for a good few hours praising a wee/dog dump with praise and titbits etc and they learn very quickly... our Lab (now 13.5) when we first got him learnt within 2 days... lot of patience but was worth it in the long run

[arielrocks]

There was a similar thread a few weeks ago.

No to pads or newspaper. It just teaches them that it’s ok to go outside. Yes the weather is bad but this won’t take long to crack if you are firm and persistent. The pads will just prolong this period of training in my experience.

A pen outside is useful as it limits the space they can wander around as once they’ve ‘gone’ they can come out and roam around. Also with this approach once they’ve gone in that area once they will smell it and learn that this is where to go.

For accidents in the house make sure you use a cleaner with enzymes to break down the scent of puppy will just keep going there because of it.

[Samm]

Originally Posted by JudyC

Having got our 9 week old labradoodle on Sunday the weather has been pretty bad for getting her toilet trained outside. I have been taking her out regularly and she done both ones and twos outside. It may have been just luck but I've given her lots of praise.
We've had lots more pees and poos in the house, her favourite go to place for a poo is under the dining room table 😳 I can't restrict access there as we have it open plan to the kitchen. I obviously watch her like a hawk and try to catch the signs.
Our previous puppy 20 years ago was in the summer so she spent a lot more time outside with us. I've always thought puppy pads just trains them it's ok to do their business inside, but I'm having a rethink for short term.
She is presently snoozing having kept us up all night 🤣 so I've time to post this.

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We bought them with all intentions of using them but he tore them up, dragged them round so we got rid and just took him out lots and got up in the night with him to take him out too. By around 15/16 weeks he could hold his bladder all night (maybe earlier but we didn’t try till then). He’s now 8 months and absolutely brilliant and never has accidents in the house. Well he’s brilliant on the toileting front but chewing, that’s a whole other story 😱

[Claudette]

I have only ever had two dogs, we picked up one in July and the other in November. Without a shadow of a doubt, I will only ever get a puppy in summer again, it was just so much harder training the second one.

Anyway puppypads. No we didn’t find them helpful, we think they might have been confusing if anything. Although to be honest they were more likely to be ignored or played with. I think the first bag of puppypads I bought was still in the cupboard four years later.

Our approach was crate training and on the clock regular trips outside, which was much easier (for us) in July.