The Puppy Experiment

One of the added “perks” touted by the petshop where we got her was that she supposedly came paper-trained. We were totally skeptical that a 3 month old puppy could already be trained in anything, but to our amazement, the day we brought her home she headed straight to the weewee pad and left a nice puddle. The problem is, she wouldn’t get off the weewee pad. In fact, she would try to stay on it as often as she could, rolling around, taking naps, and lounging on it as if it were a living room carpet.

At first we thought it was just because she didn’t have anything more comfy to lie on, so we put some t-shirt fabric on the other side of her pen. But no, after a few seconds of wrestling with the fabric she’d go straight back to the weewee pad, sitting on it right after she had peed. It’s like her comfy security blankie. So naturally, the first command we had to teach her was “Off.”

The weewee pad is not a toy!

We can tell when she is going to pee or poo by the way she paces around and sniffs the floor. So any time she tries to hang out on the pad, it’s “Off!” and then “Good Girl,” as soon as her paws are off the pad. It seems to work when you catch her in the act, but sometimes she still hangs out on the pad when we’re not looking, and I know she’s on there when we’re away from home. She’s even ripped up the weewee pad while we were out – twice, leaving microfiber dust all over the place. That’s probably because we didn’t tire her out before we left her home and she got bored, but still. It’s becoming an issue.

She’s been so good with everything else, and in general, listens to us carefully and is very well-behaved. But sometimes, whether out of contempt or boredom, she plays on the pad from time to time, and it seems like we’re saying “Off!” almost as often as we’re calling her name.

We have to kill this love for the weewee pad.

Our solution? Remove the weewee pad altogether. Well, sort of.

We ordered this pad holder called the UGODOG indoor dog potty for $39.95 + $10 shipping. It’s on backorder, which makes us think UGODOG is a really small company, so we’re not so sure about how good it will be. We have to wait 2 weeks for ours to arrive.

Apparently there are a whole bunch of them out there, even Target has its own crappy-looking generic version. We chose the UGODOG because of the fancy futuristic 3D animation on the website, and because it had 2 grates instead of 1, which should be easier to clean in our bathtub. It’s basically a rectangular plastic tray with a grate on top. It’s sized to hold a standard weewee pad, which you put on the bottom and then the grate goes on top. The grate prevents access to the weewee pad, and keeps the poo on top, nice and easy to scoop. Yay.

And no more poopy pee paw prints on the floor.

We think this lady is one of the first indoor potties - her dog would go nuts on its weewee pad, ripping it up and playing all over it, even after going #1 and #2. I would have gone nuts and invented one too.

We shall see. Waiting with baited breath for the UPS guy to buzz.