Apartment living-Tips for potty training

[Brittney Dickson]

Hi all,
I wanted to reach out and see if anyone that lives in an apartment and went through potty training etc. with their new doodle and  had any tips for being successful and manageing the lack of a fenced back yard? Has anyone used those synthetic grass indoor relief systems on their porch? I definiely wouldn't use it as our primary area for our pup doing his business but it might be a good option for training.Any thoughts, ideas or tips would be much appreciated!

[Lindsay n Archie]

I dont live in an apartment BUT since he is at my side all the time its basically the same thing! My yard is not fenced (yet) either.  I do try to take him on walks.  Is there a spot of grass near you that he can relieve himself outside?  Maybe make it "his spot" to go.  We have a part of the back yard that Archie always goes to first to pee.... My friend has a toy breed and uses the pee pad. She was just talking about that grass thing for the patio. I personally dont like it, but i heard it works.

[Megan York]

I live in an 800 sq ft apartment with a 90 lb 3 year old golden and a 20 lb 6 month old golden doodle! I brought my doodle home to the apartment when he was 6 weeks old. At 6 months, he is totally housetrained and will "hold it" inside for between 4-6 hours without complaining. 

I didn't use any kind of "indoor system". I always thought it would confuse the puppy more. Instead, we did it the old fashioned way. We were outside on a leash every THIRTY minutes. Luckily, my apartment is located right on a walking path, and right outside my door is a large patch of grass...so he got used to going there. You just have to be super consistent. I would say within a few weeks Walter knew where he needed to go and that the goal was to "hold it" inside. 

I ALWAYS too Walt out on a leach also, it's tempting with a puppy to let them go leashless becuase the'll stay close to you. However, because I did that, Walter learned that in order to go out he had to have his leash on and eventually he learned to go stand near where we hang the leashes on the wall.

Good luck!!! 

[Sue & Lily Grace]

Lily Grace is now 6 1/2 months old and had her last accident in the house Christmas Day. My fault, with all the commotion I forgot about her. I have always taken my dogs out on a leash when potty training so I would know what they did so it made do difference with Lily Grace that we now live in an apartment. Just be consistent and take them out often.

[Namrata and Rowlfy]

I live in an apartment in NYC. We got Rowlfy when he was 8 weeks old, he was fully potty trained by the time he was 4.5 months old.  Here is what we did, took him out every hour or so when he was awake.  We waited longer if he was sleeping.  Took him out every 30 minutes if we were playing.  Also we carried him through the elevator and outside (that way there was no chance of him associating the building as peeing space) for month and half after got him (he is a mini so he wasn't that heavy).  We took away water two hours before bedtime and we crated him so he that he wouldn't pee in the middle of the night without us noticing.  Whenever we caught him peeing in the apartment, we clapped to startle him and said 'no' and carried him out immediately   We also hung poochie bells by the door and rang it everytime we took him out.  He got a hang of it within a week and rang it if he wanted to go out.  Sometimes it was just for play but we still took him out. Hope this helps.  Good luck.    PS make sure to use special pet urine odor removal enzyme cleaner to clean the accidents.  

[Lauren & Ankur Pandya]

Hi Namrata,

My husband and I live in Brooklyn and our little MGD, Kosar, is from Country Mini Doodle.  He is currently 15 weeks and we are starting the potty training outside.  Did you experience your puppy hating city sounds and being distracted by people walking by at first?  How did you train your puppy to adapt to the sounds and ignore others around him?  Any keywords you used during training? 

Rowlfy is adorable--thanks in advance for the suggestions:)

[Sharae & Winston]

My boyfriend and I live in an apartment and currently have a 6 month old doodle. We never used puppy pads (even though I bought about 100 lol!) or any other type of indoor relief systems and I am SO glad we didn't. I've heard horror stories and personally know people who have used the pads and their dogs are never reliably housetrained. Logically, to me, it doesn't make sense that they would fully understand they need to go potty outside all the time, when sometimes they are allowed to go inside. I'm not sure if someone is home during the day with your doodle or not, but what we did was took him outside diligently pretty much every hour to ensure that there would be NO accidents inside. If your pup is going to be home alone then he/she needs to be crated so that they are forced to hold it. Most of the time they will not do their business in their crate so it is a wonderful tool during housetraining (or even training in general when you get a puppy). The biggest thing I've found and heard from our trainer is PREVENTING ACCIDENTS. If that means taking them our 50 times a day, then so be it... it sucks in the beginning but will get much easier! Winston is now going on almost 2 months of no accidents, and probably would have been longer but we found out he had a UTI a couple months back.

I agree with Lindsey above,  when you take them outside to go potty, try to take them to the same spot every time. Our trainer calls it a "jackpot spot". Once they go in their jackpot spot they get a treat (or two) and then maybe can go on a short walk around the block or something, but they need to know when you go there it's to eliminate- not to play. These are just my personal tips or one's given to me by trainers that have worked! Kudos for having a puppy in an apartment and being willing to put in the work because it's twice as hard as when you live in a house!

[Traz, Karen & Dale]

My niece lives in an apartment and she uses one of those artificial potty patches on her balcony and loves it!

We live in a house and I tried to use one of those artificial potty porches when we re-did our backyard.  Traz was 4-5 months at that time.  Unfortunately, the potty porch did  not work with him.  I could have purchased the "real" sod to put in it to see if that would entice him to use it, but I didn't want to spend anymore money on this contraption.  He had too many places (non-grass) where he could relief himself.  The closest we came to him using it was when one of his doggy friends peed on the side of it.  Traz then peed on the side to mark his territory.  Go figure.  Oh well...so it sits in the back yard for visitors to use.

So, I guess it all depends on the dog.  If it is the only place that he has to go, it might work (like in my niece's situation).

Good luck with your potty training.

[Oliver & Elizabeth]

We did the Fresh Patch. It's a real grass (grown hydroponically) potty patch that you order through Amazon and shipped on a schedule via FedEx. We got a new one delivered every two weeks, it worked really nicely. We used it at night and when Oliver was left alone for a few hours--we had an ex-pen set up with his bed, water, food toys, and potty patch. Some people don't like potty patches, for us this was the best option as at least he was still being conditioned to use real grass.

[Suzanne Newman]

Hi Brittney!

Yes we have two of them!  They work great!!  We have them outside however.   One is up on our deck off our master bedroom where she sleeps with us (in her crate), and another on the back patio.  She goes right to it and goes potty.    If you have it indoors, of course you won't have the issue with it getting wet like we do, but overall both of them are real life savers, because our "prissy girl" Whidbey doesn't like the rain or getting wet!  (LOL We live in Seattle!)

(We bought them both on Amazon for really inexpensive, by the way!)

[Rachel and Ollie]

I live in an apartment on the third floor...that was fun going up and down every 20 min - an hour! I did the bell method. I put the bells by the door and he caught on pretty fast that ringing them meant potty time. To start, every time I took him down I'd ring them with his paw or head. I also gated him in the kitchen so he couldn't hide behind something and pee, this helped me to catch him quicker. (I stayed in the kitchen with him)

[Karen & Maple]

Rachel, this is encouraging as I too live on the third floor of a condo-stairs no elevator. We're getting our Puppy the first of the new year. I've thought for years this would disqualify me from dog ownership. But I'm committed now to doing just as you've described. Oh, and I should add that it's usually pretty nasty in Boston in January. But I figure instead of a gym membership, I'll just run a puppy up & down! I am considering putting sod on the porch for those really stormy days.
Brittany, thanks for starting this discussion.