The big day is Wednesday March 2nd! Our family room has been transformed into a virtual Puppy Palace! Hahahha.... Our tiny Seda is already changing our world. Now for a question re: What else....Potty training.....

Seda has a pen in our family room that will be set up with her crate, bed, potty pad w/ holder, toys and food/water bowls. We are using the Iris med. pad holder.
When we take her out of her pen for playtime (fully supervised!) , what should we do if she needs/starts to potty? Do we keep a pee pad outside of the pen to get her to, or do we guide her into the pen to use the pad there? We are doing inside training as our work schedules may overlap at times and we'd like to keep that indoor option. We've already decided to keep a pad in our bathroom (upstairs) as we plan to have her crated in our bedroom & feel the less commotion, i.e. running her up and down stairs, the better.

I'm getting a little anxious about getting this right!

When Tucker was a wee little boy and not housebroken yet, we kept a pee pad in the family room for him to use. He didn't give much notice that he had to pee so having a pee pad out for him worked well. Until he was 12 - 13 weeks old we also kept a king size mattress pad (with the elastic and side panels cut out) down on the rug just in case he didn't make it to the pee pad. He always made it though. DH and I are retired so one of us took him outside to potty every 30 to 45 minutes when he was awake. He learned quickly to potty outside. By the time he was 4 mos. old, he quite using the pee pads and never went in the house either. I believe if we had not been able to take him out like we did, it would have been much harder to housebreak him. So to answer you question, yes, have other pee pads available to Seda when she's out of the x-pen/crate.

I know you must be SO exited for Wed. to get here. Wishing you the best with little Seda

First let me say that Tucker is so darn CUTE!! You explained using the pee pad in the family room.....does this mean you were using the pee pad and training him to go outside at the same time, or were you using the pads just until he was a little older then switching to outside training?
Thanks so much for the advise
I have scoured the "puppy" forum and I've been soaking up all the tips I can manage!

I did the both pad training and outdoor training and I will say it is the hardest route to go, Gucci will still think that if a pad isn't down, a welcome mat or bathroom rug is fair game and a plush fuzzy pee pad for her use and convenience, lol

I can imagine the puppy palace, I had one too, they will want to be with you and not in the pen, anyways..no matter how much you fancy it up, they'll want to be in your lap or snuggled up over the toys and plush beds

to the forum!

I know it seems overwhelming and exciting, but its a fun adventure and your live will be filled with more love and smiles than you can imagine! Enjoy the ride..

Kara

Kara - Thanks for the "heads up" re: combined inside/outside housebreaking. I've read many comments on this forum expressing the same experience you had. We will stick to inside training for now...best option for our work schedules Ideally, at some point we will hopefully transition to outside potty. So, pee pads it is! Oh, and probably gonna roll up and store all the little mats/rugs
I am so grateful for this forum. I've read quite a bit on this adorable breed and training tips, but there is nothing like the voices of experience answering direct questions. Besides, I might drive the breeder crazy if I didn't have another avenue for advise..lol!

Mine are trained to go both outside via doggy door and on potty pads. It comes in handy when you travel and when the weather is bad. We also have a Potty Patch which we found ours at Bed, Bath & Beyond. Its one of the cheapest artificial grass systems out there but it does the job.

Well....maybe I can contribute something here!!

We got our precious Lola last Saturday and have her set up in our Master bathroom where she plays and sleeps in her crate both there and in our bedroom.

When Lola needs to use her potty at night, she will cry until I take her, she does her business on the pad and goes back to sleep. During the day in the bathroom, she has access to the pad when necessary and will always stop what she's doing and head to her pad if she needs to.

We're planning on expanding her routine and setting up a segregated play pen area near the family room downstairs, but the pee pad will be in her play area so that she doesn't need to bother us if the urge strikes her.

Hope I'm making sense!!! So far, Lola has had NO accidents and uses her pee pad religiously. We of course, shower her with praise galore. I might look and act like a nut, but it's working!!!

My breeder sent me home with the greatest pee pads. They are similar to a mattress pad but have a water proof back and are about twice the size of a paper pad. If you are going to do in house training having a few of those is great because you can wash them. I have probably wash them over 30 times and are still as good as new. She added dryer sheets and the puppy's got used to the smell. I also use paper ones and I put them in a dog litter box .
If I was to start fresh the dog litter box is a great container to have them go in because puppy's will run around and some times miss a paper pad on the floor. They also love to chew them up. The ones I put in the litter box seem to stay their and it has more protection if they miss. It would also be good in the X pin you have put together. You could move the dog litter pan around where ever you are at so the pup gets used to it and knows that is his box.
Here is a picture

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We had the pee pads in the x-pen where we kept Tucker when we couldn't watch him closely. While he was out of the x-pen we had a pee pad down for him. He rarely used the pee pad because we were constantly taking him outside to potty. I'm sure if DH wasn't retired and able to help take him out so often, we would have had a much harder time housebreaking Tucker. During the night when Tucker needed to go potty, we took him out of his crate, down the stairs and outside. Our aim was to let him know outside was the place to do his business. We got him in June and it rained all summer long. That ended up being a good thing because he doesn't mind going outside to potty in the rain. He doesn't mind the snow (loves it) or cold, but he runs back inside when it' very cold and windy. Most of the time now, he'll go outside by himself to potty. Occasionally we have to go with him, but that ok. We found that a small gardening trowel is great for picking up poop. We spray Lysol on it after to clean it. Hope is helps.

Thanks for the visual on the use of peepads. We have decided on a similar set-up using a sturdy pad holder in a big enough size to help prevent near misses I like the idea of the litter box with pad as it appears more defined. We'll see how it goes She will be 11wks old this week and the breeder has been using the pee pads since the puppies were 8wks old. 3 more days!!!!