Plenty of dog owners opt to use pee pads when potty training their puppies for a variety of reasons. If your dog uses pee pads, or if you are thinking about switching to this method, you may be wondering: Can dogs use pee pads forever?
In this article, we will be answering a wide variety of questions that you may have about pee pads for dogs, and hope you find some of our tips helpful!
Can Dogs Use Pee Pads Forever?
Dogs are completely safe to use pee pads forever, but it’s important to keep in mind that this method does cost money and can potentially make your house smell if not changed frequently enough.
Pee pads can be a great option for an owner who doesn’t have easy access to an outside yard, isn’t home often enough, or for an elderly dog who can no longer hold its bladder for long periods.
If you travel with your dog often but hate having to stop every hour to let them out to potty, pee pads are a great alternative, we just recommend having a smell-free disposal system.
Puppies who aren’t fully potty trained often have frequent accidents in the house because they don’t fully understand holding their bladder or proper potty areas.
Pee pads can be extremely useful during potty training, but also crate training! You can lay a potty pad at the bottom of your pup’s crate to ensure they don’t make any hard-to-clean messes.
What’s the Best Type of Pee Pad to Use?
This is largely dependent on what your dog likes, and what you are comfortable with purchasing. Bigger breeds may need a heavy-duty pad that can absorb more urine than a normal pee pad.
If you have a male dog, you may want to find wall liners as well as pee pads to make sure your pooch won’t ruin any paint or wallpaper. If you are concerned about the environment, there are washable and reusable pee pads that are made for a wide range of breeds and sizes.
Cloth pee pads are generally more budget-friendly and can be washed as frequently as needed. You can find a wide variety of disposable and reusable pee pads available in pet stores, or on leading pet supply websites like Chewy and Amazon.
If all else fails, your veterinarian most likely has a brand that they prefer, and it never hurts to ask for professional opinions. You can use newspapers as pee pads, which are widely available, affordable, and you can probably get a bunch for free from people you know!
How Often Should You Change or Wash Pee Pads?
If your dog is a large or medium-sized breed with large amounts of waste, we recommend changing their pee pad after every use to ensure their potty area stays as clean as possible.
By doing this you encourage them to not break their house training by finding an unapproved area of your house to potty in. If your dog is a small or teacup-sized breed, you can most likely wait to change their pee pad until 3 or 4 uses, depending on the smell and overall mess that’s been made.
If your dog’s pee pad is covered in waste, there is a good chance that they are also tracking that waste all over your house. We recommend stocking up on your preferred type of pee pad at the beginning of the day, so changing them out frequently throughout your dog’s day is a little easier.
If you notice any concerning symptoms in your pet’s bathroom habits, we recommend bringing them to a licensed veterinarian to ensure there are no underlying medical concerns.
What Are the Pros and Cons of Pee Pads?
Pee pads have many strengths and weaknesses that you should consider before making any decisions. We recommend reviewing different brands and types of pee pads to see which one best fits both you and your dogs’ needs.
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Can You Train a Dog to Go Outside as Well?
Training your dog to go outside is the same exact process as training them to go on a pee pad. You can achieve this by bringing your dog outside as frequently as possible, while also rewarding and praising them every time they successfully potty outside.
If you consistently repeat this process, you will eventually be able to rely less on the pee pads until your dog can indicate to you when they need to go outside.
There are also helpful tools like doggy doorbells and buttons designed to help your dog alert you as to when they need to potty so that you can see more success and fewer accidents in the house.
Think you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? As long as your pooch doesn’t have medical reasoning for not being able to wait to potty, they are more than capable of learning new tricks.
Consistency, heavy rewards, lots of praise, and patience are all you require to successfully train a dog of any age to go outside to use the bathroom.
Conclusion
In this article we covered a variety of topics, ranging from a dog’s ability to use pee pads forever and why, other pee pad options, and training your pooch to potty outside!
We hope you can use some of these tips in your canine companion’s potty routines, but if you need more help on this topic YouTube has great training videos available for free.