If someone could point me in the right direction for the search function, that would stop me from double-posting topics that might have been covered already.
I was wondering if anyone here has tried using a litter tray for puppy toilet training.
We’re picking up a puppy at 8/9 weeks old (we would have liked the breeder to keep her for another week or two, but it wasn't possible).
Since she’s so young, we know toilet training is going to take a long time (we’re under no illusions there!) and to keep the accidents to a minimum, besides being very patient, we were wondering if it’s worth trying a litter area? I’ve seen quite a few puppy-specific litter products on pet sites (even the more reputable ones) and wanted to know if anyone has actually tried them?
My gut feeling is that it’s probably best avoided so the pup doesn't get confused and get into the habit of going indoors, but if anyone has a different perspective or experience, we’d love to hear from you.
Thanks in advance for your replies!
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I got my puppy Raphy two months ago; he’s almost five months old now and he’s been house-trained pretty much from the start.
He’s only had four or five accidents and a couple of poos in the house since he arrived. On the first day, he did have a wee and a poo, but I think that’s normal as he’d just been taken away from his mum, had been living outdoors and wasn't used to being inside.
To get him house-trained, I didn't say a word to him when he had those few accidents; I just cleaned it up when he wasn't around.
When he does his business outside, I always praise him with a "well done", "good boy" and lots of fusses.
He’s worked out for himself that a wee in the house gets no reaction from me, but a wee outside gets a reward.
I’d also suggest that once he’s gone to the toilet outside, you carry on with the walk for a bit. I made the mistake at first of heading straight back because I was on a tight schedule to get to work in the mornings, so he started holding it in to make the walk last longer. Now, with lockdown and hour-long walks every time, he does his business on the very first patch of grass we come across, and then we spend the rest of the time walking and playing.
He’s great at letting me know when he needs to go out now, usually by bringing me either the toy I keep outside or my shoes.
Personally, I don't think you need puppy pads. Why teach him one thing only to have to retrain him later? You might as well teach him the right way from the start.
I agree with Kikaah and Mel, I’m against them; more often than not, the puppy can’t tell the difference between a rug and a puppy pad once it’s been taken away. There are always exceptions, of course, but personally, I think taking them out for regular toilet breaks is much better than letting them go in the house.
There’s something instinctive about it; as long as you don't mess with that instinct (by giving the puppy regular access to the outdoors, whether you use puppy pads or not), things usually fall into place naturally.
One small caveat though—there are clearly some puppies who don't seem to have that natural urge. We often see people coming to the forum in despair because their pup is still having accidents in the house at 8 months old. Sometimes there’s an obvious issue with how often they're being taken out, but not always... every now and then we get people describing pups who just won't go outside and wait until they're back indoors to relieve themselves. It's quite rare—the vast majority of puppies become house-trained fairly naturally—but it does happen.
Is it nature or nurture? I imagine it could be linked to the breeding conditions if they didn't allow the puppy's natural instincts to develop (like the pup not having access to the outdoors or even any absorbent surfaces) or perhaps a traumatic event (a fear of the outdoors which prevents the puppy from being relaxed enough to do its business).
In those specific cases, I guess you have to go through a proper "house-training" process—for example, giving loads of rewards and praise when the dog goes outside and using a cue word for the action, so you can eventually get the dog to go on command.
But for the vast majority of puppies... whether you use training pads to protect your floors or not, providing regular access to the outside is usually enough! :)
If you want a dog to understand that peeing indoors is wrong, you've still got to explain it to them.
In my opinion, absolutely not. A puppy doesn't "want" to do their business on a hard floor any more than a baby "wants" to go in their nappy ^^
It’s just a matter of physical control. You don't make a baby understand that going in their nappy is "wrong"; you simply put them on the potty, and then when they're old enough, they move on to the toilet.
I’ve never tried to make a puppy understand that going indoors is "wrong", and they’ve all managed to go outside without any trouble – it’s just the natural progression for a dog.
When my dog was born, she’d go and her mother would clean it up... then it was in the farm barn, then outside the barn, and so on. The mother dog didn’t tell her pups "it’s naughty to pee in the barn!"; nature just takes its course, really.
With the first dog we ever had, back when we lived in a flat, my dad used to put newspaper down by the door. If she needed to go and couldn't get out right away, she'd use that. She was house-trained really quickly—maybe two weeks—and it didn't seem to cause any issues at all; she never had accidents on any other surfaces in the flat.
My current dog, on the other hand, had constant access to a garden and I never used newspaper, yet it took much longer for her to be fully house-trained—several months, in fact.
It wasn't that she didn't "get it"; she really wanted to go outside (any accidents indoors were always right in front of the door... if it had been open, she would've gone out). It was simply that her high energy levels meant she needed to go more often—a puppy that zooms around a lot drinks more, which inevitably leads to more frequent trips to the toilet.
Anyway, I don't think there's any absolute right or wrong way here. Whatever you do, the main thing is to work with the puppy's natural instincts.
Putting a puppy pad near the door where they naturally head anyway, just to save the floorboards, is quite different from setting up a litter tray in some random corner of the house and carrying the puppies over to it.
In the first case, you're just sliding a pad under the spot the puppy is already heading for. In the second, it’s a more unnatural training process involving a specific area of the house dedicated to doing their business.
Personally, I’m against it because I think the best way to house-train them is to take them outside as often as possible. Why bother with all the gadgets when a pair of shoes does the trick? ^^
I couldn't tell you what went wrong with your parents' dogs. All I can say is that Basile's breeder has five Standard Poodles and uses puppy pads for the pups (everyone lives in the house), and she’s had no issues at all with the adults.
In any case, when you have a litter, even if you don't use pads, you can't exactly follow every puppy around to catch them in the act when they wee indoors just to say "no". The wee just ends up on your wooden floor instead of a pad. Either way, pads or no pads, adult dogs living with puppies are going to see the puppy going in the house without being told off, so they might take that as "permission" to go indoors too, if we go by your logic.
Léon definitely saw Basile use his pad, and occasionally the tiles, but it never entered his head to do the same. "Permission" or not, my dog only wants to go outside. That’s what I find so odd about your experience. An adult dog isn't normally looking for permission to go indoors—not because it’s "banned", but because they just don't want to; it wouldn't even occur to them. They much prefer going outside on a walk to mark (do your parents' dogs get the chance to mark regularly on walks?). It’s like how you wouldn't go and roll in poo; you could see all your little cousins doing it and it still wouldn't cross your mind. It’s visceral, really; my dogs don't want to go indoors now that they’re house-trained, and I reckon I could show them dozens of puppies peeing inside and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.
Personally, I think for most dogs, house-training isn't about learning what's "forbidden" (the dog doesn't stop going indoors because they were told off), but rather a habit that sticks more or less quickly depending on the dog's instincts—which vary between individuals—like looking for absorbent surfaces, moving away from their bed, or marking on walks. As long as a dog has those instincts and is given the chance to use them (frequent access outside), I'm convinced that telling a dog off for going inside is pretty much a waste of time.
That said, some dogs don't seem to have those instincts or that natural drive to go outside (probably because it was discouraged at the breeder's), in which case house-training might need some proper work, but thankfully that's not the case for most dogs.
Yeah, protecting your floorboards is basically like putting down a massive puppy pad. Except that even on this massive pad, weeing is still strictly forbidden! Every time I caught Odin in the act, I let him know I wasn't happy — "NO, wees go outside!" I wasn't being aggressive or anything, obviously.
But I’ve never been one for the "ignore it and clean it up when they aren't looking" approach. If you want a dog to understand that weeing in the house is wrong, you’ve got to actually tell them.
My parents never used to use training pads, but they did when they had a litter as it was more practical for the puppies. But the thing is, the adults — who were already perfectly house-trained — took it as a sign that it was now okay to wee indoors. It’s just mimicry; they see the little ones being allowed to go on that "mat" thing, so they think they can too. And when that mat isn't there anymore, they just go on something else...
I don't think it was a training issue, my parents just followed some bad advice. You see it everywhere online: "Get a litter tray for your puppy to help with house-training." They chose the easy way out — trying to get six puppies outside every hour in February isn't exactly easy!
But the fact is, the three adults who were never raised with a litter tray saw that puppy pad as permission to go in the house. And they were already fully trained. Thank goodness they only have Dachshunds now; it would have been a right mess with Great Danes! 😅 The volume of wee isn't exactly the same.
Actually, I get the impression this whole dog litter thing is mostly a thing for small dog owners. But big or small, a dog’s needs are the same!
That’s why it’s a good safety measure to take up any rugs until the puppy is fully house-trained, whether you use puppy pads or not. While many puppies will naturally go on a pad, it’s simply because their instinct draws them to absorbent surfaces. If there are rugs about, they might set their sights on those instead, even if you’ve never used a puppy pad with them. It doesn’t happen every time, but if you can so easily avoid them picking up a bad habit—which can sometimes take ages to break—you might as well not risk it.
So, in my house, puppy = no rugs. And not just because of the accidents; a rug is also a very tempting thing to chew on.
I must admit, I’ve never understood all the panic surrounding puppy pads. I think that, as is often the case, the problem isn’t the object itself but how people use it. You can use a pad while still following "traditional" house-training. I’m not sure how your parents went about it, but clearly not the same way as me, as I’ve never taught my dogs that it was "allowed to go indoors" like you’re saying.
My use of pads was purely opportunistic. Meaning, I never actually taught my puppy to use it; he just went there himself because he preferred an absorbent surface.
On the other hand, if my dog hadn’t had that reflex (not all of them do, especially pups who didn't have the option at the breeder’s), I wouldn’t have actively tried to train him to use it. I might have shown him where it was once or twice just to make sure he’d noticed it, but I wouldn't have pushed it. Pestering a dog to use a pad if it doesn’t come naturally, or reinforcing it with treats and such—I reckon that’s a waste of time if the end goal is to get them to go outside.
As long as the use of the pad is opportunistic and just taps into that instinct many puppies have to go on absorbent surfaces—be it litter, pads, or rugs indoors (and grass, soil, or sand outdoors)—and as long as the house-training is done the standard way (taking the pup out as often as possible and praising them when they do their business outside), I don’t see why it would be any more "dangerous" than protecting your wooden floors the way you did.
Protecting your floor is basically like laying down a pad that covers the whole room anyway. Instead of protecting the whole lot, I only protected a tiny bit of it (the bit under the pad) and took advantage of the fact that the puppy’s instinct would lead him there :)
Yeah, but the thing is, there were no problems during training; never any wee on the carpets. It was only once the puppy pads were taken away that they started going on the carpets instead. And it wasn't just the puppies! Even the adults (I had three at the time) who were perfectly house-trained got the idea that they were allowed to go inside...
I’m really against them; I’ll never use them. Just because one puppy gets the hang of it doesn't mean they all will.
When I got Odin, I prepped the house (protected the wood floors) expecting to be cleaning up accidents for months. In the end, he was house-trained in a fortnight... If I’d given him an "indoor toilet", I'm sure it would have taken much longer.
