Apartment-specific training tips

J

jesusismybestfriend314

New member
Hello fellow Redditors,

My wife and I need some pointers (doggy-joke alert).

We are getting a new mini-American/mini-Aussie puppy (Aug 15). We live in a high-rise building so it takes a bit (say, 4-6 min) to go down and out into the nearby grassy areas. Also, this is a high dog-population area so I probably shouldn't take them out before 14wk/vaccinations are done anyway.

We've been trying to read up on basic puppy training things and while we've found amazing resources and a lot of information, I think a lot of it is intended for people who live in houses with backyards with easy access to grass/toilet spots (which, sadly, we do not). We do have a balcony (good) but that has gaps between railings (bad).

Could puppy parents with experience in high-rises/apartments please suggest resources that are more helpful in apartment-specific scenarios? (e.g. topics like starting with p-pads and gradually transitioning to grass etc)

That would be extremely helpful to us as first-time puppy owners. Many thanks in advance for your time and help!
 
@jesusismybestfriend314 We used Fresh Patch, real grass sod pad delivered weekly for our pup. Would probably work well to keep it outside, and after the new one comes you just throw the old one in a garbage bag and out to the dumpster. I would have to maintain it (ie you’ll still be picking up poop) but thought it worked better than puppy pads and removed the obligation of cleaning of the fake grass.
 
@kjvifbbaptistguy I've been doing something similar. Someone recently pointed out to me that you can also just buy sod and another plastic crate bottom, which (at least in my case) is much more cost effective, so that's what I'm going to start doing soon.
 
@jesusismybestfriend314 If you’re going to do this, make sure you change it regularly. My partner and I tried a million different ways to have a patch of grass on our apartment balcony and always after a few weeks, the pup would go back to peeing inside. We figured out it was because he hated the smell of the grass soaking in his pee, the grass you get from the hardware store doesn’t drain well and going out of our way to the hardware store and getting it upstairs every week was a real pain for us. We’re now back to The Pet Loo, a plastic grass toilet with an empty tray. Lucky for us, our balcony has a drain, so we actually took the tray out and sat the thing in front of the drain. Still needs hosing every other day but no more lingering pee smell.

Also note, the plastic box you sit the grass in is also going to retain the pee smell, especially if it’s sitting in the sun. We tried a bunch of diy wood frames and it got more expensive than if we just ordered the weekly grass for that time.
 
@jesusismybestfriend314 Once a fortnight might be fine. Ours was fine for multiple weeks in summer, but once winter started, the rain seemed to stir up the smell and make him hate it. So he definitely couldn’t go for more than two weeks with it. I guess see how your puppy responds and adjust.
 
@kjvifbbaptistguy yes yes and yes! I've been using potty patch (just got my 12 week old pup 2 weeks ago) and it has been a game changer. I've cleaned it once and hated every second of it, so I am totally going to look into this fresh patch idea!! Thank you!
 
@kjvifbbaptistguy Yes! I live on the 15th floor and Fresh Patch saved my life. It is a little expensive but in my opinion worth every penny. My pup started using it immediately and I get a new one every two weeks and just throw out the old one.
 
@kjvifbbaptistguy I bought one of those square washing machine drain pans and put my own sod into it. You can get a roll from home depot for around $5. Trash bag and throw the old stuff away after a couple weeks and replace. Worked great. It was a life saver for apartment living with our pup. It makes potty training easier for them as well since they will associate the grass with where they're supposed to go.
 
@jesusismybestfriend314 Hi there! We have 4 month old puppy and live on the 31st floor of a high rise, in a busy city, surrounded by dogs. I can definitely sympathize! We're first-time dog owners so what we do is probably not 100% effective for everyone but it has worked for us.

For potty training, we started with pee pads indoors until he was fully vaccinated. Then we moved to grassy areas in our nearby dog park - we didn't do much to entice him to pee or poop on the grass actually as he just naturally went from the start. Peeing and pooping on the ground was way harder... when we first started walking him it was almost impossible to get him to pee on a hard surface. We came prepared with treats on every walk so when he finally did find a place to pee, we rewarded a ton and now he has 3 designated spots in the area that he will pee on.

For walking him outside, our vet actually said it was okay to walk him in the area on non-grassy areas after his 2nd vaccination. We found this to be really important for socializing him because our area is full of people, dogs, squirrels, cars, and a million other things. We didn't introduce all these things to him at once of course, but he was a really scared, stubborn walker at first so I'm glad we got that over with initially. It took him a couple weeks to walk at all (we spent 1 week only in front of our lobby, then graduated to once around the block which still took half an hour). Now he's super excited to go on walks and pulls sometimes to go faster! He has never gotten sick as a result of walking him this way and he is in perfect health according to our vet. Our area's dogs are pretty well taken care of and I'm confident all of them are vaccinated. When we passed a dog that we didn't trust, we just crossed the street or didn't let our puppy near it.

Something we're doing now is potty training on our balcony. We recently renovated it (was super gross before and not livable) so we moved the pee pad there instead. I wish we did this earlier so our apartment wouldn't smell like urine and poop lol. I will say this set us back in potty training because he was pretty much fully house broken but moving the pad outside beyond a door has confused him a bit. It's definitely better now though because our home doesn't smell!

Living in a high rise and working remotely, it's just impossible to take him out to pee downstairs every time, especially because his preferred pee spot is a couple blocks away too. Working hard on the potty training on the pee pad was one of the most helpful things we did because if we move the pad, he still generally knows to pee on it.

Edit: spelling, and after reading other comments. I don't think pee pad training hindered our transition into going outdoors. Honestly our puppy only uses the pad on the balcony a few times a day: first thing in the morning (honestly I'm not a morning person and cannot wake up at 7am to bring him to the park lol), pee once in the afternoon, and pee right before bed. He LOVES doing his business outside and I'm sure if we replaced these times with a walk he wouldn't miss the pad at all.
 
Also we got a pee pad holder and it was a god send. It looks like a plastic grate and basically you put the pee pad inside it. It's easy to wash and move around, and our puppy has never chewed up his pad. Also easy to move it to the balcony!
 
@bornagainbrian Awesome - we might take the cue you seem to suggest in the penultimate paragraph and start with the balcony-pee-pad combo right from the get-go. I can sleep next to the crate initially and go to balcony when needed fairly easily - I just have to figure out how to make the balcony safe (there's a gap or two that could be hazardous) + my neighbor's cats saunter nonchalantly in once in a while.
 
@jesusismybestfriend314 Yeah we had the same issue at first too, gaps near the railing. Thankfully our guy is a bit bigger now so can't get through the gaps. I saw in our dog park that the city puts a kind of steel/metal mesh and wraps it around the base of all the fencing. Maybe something similar could work?

We have a mini cockapoo! He's extremely hyper and thankfully easy to train 😅 my friend just got a mini Aussie as well and it seems super smart! Best of luck :)
 
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