Puppy Pad Training

City dwellers, new puppy owners and house trainers, often use training pads to help in house training a puppy or to fill in for a relief walk for older and younger dog alike. Apartment living mostly means no backyard for that bathroom respite and rain can make some of the best trained dogs turn tail and head back to the high rise. While walking is always best to instill good house breaking, (after all, "wee wee" pads work partly because they are grass scented) second best is offering a fixed place for indoor relief, such as pads or newspaper, which will contain pet waste in a set location. But what about when your pet won’t use them? Or those near misses? You know the ones right next to the pad?

In order to understand and address what’s happening with your pet missing the mark, consider the circumstances:

- Are pads and paper changed frequently?

- Where is the elimination happening?

- Is it next to the exit door?

- Is it close to the pad or paper?

- Has the pet been trained to use an alternative?

Once you have considered some of the factors be consistent with your approach to set your pet up for success:

- No scolding or punishing. Think training for the behaviors we want instead of giving a lecture our pet cannot understand. Never push a dog into a soiled area, this teaches nothing but that you will hurt them and they should fear you.

- Change pads and paper as soon as they are soiled or as quickly as possible to ensure your pet will have a clean surface to use. Make sure to clean soiled areas thoroughly, a good enzymatic cleaner is key in removing all traces of odors that most other cleaners leave behind.

- If the elimination is happening close to your exit door, your pet may be trying to get eliminate as close to outside as possible. Move the pads or paper next to the door.

- If elimination is close or in proximity of the pad or paper your pet may simply need more than one pad or paper. Some dogs will position themselves to relieve themselves and move forward or backward before, after or during the process. Your pet may be starting on the proper surface and run out of area before he or she is done. An extra pad or more paper will fix this.

- Consider covering the top of the pad with several layers of newspaper for the pet that has been paper trained as a puppy. This sort of dog will more likely target the newspaper which will soak through to the pad underneath.

A little thinking things through for your pet and you can contain waste where it needs to be.

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