There are several things in training a puppy that first time dog owners can procrastinate on but potty training is not one of those. As soon as the little fur-ball arrives she will almost immediately start to pee and poop all over the place.
There is plenty of advice on the internet, you probably have already googled this topic and tried several advice out already. I did so too.
We live in an apartment with no garden connection only a balcony. My puppy potty setup looked like this at first: puppy play pen up in a corner, crate attached to it, and the whole area covered with puppy pads. This is where she lived, played, slept and defecated for the first period. I also had pads in one corner of the balcony for when we were outside. As soon as Nara went for more and more to the same spots to do her thing I was able to remove more and more pads. We operated like this for 4-5 weeks because she wasn't fully vaccinated yet. There is no science in it.
My game changer magic twist was the following:
I logged each and every pee and poop on a piece of paper. Precise time and type of outcome. Pee, poop, diarrhea, vomit. In other words: I created a forecasting system where based on the previous days data I was able to estimate when she would need to go next. Boom. No more surprises or accidents.
This logging system proved to be invaluable for me in many different ways:
foreseeing the need for nighttime potty breaks. At week 1 I had to wake up to her 4-5 times. At week 2 it dropped to 3-4. Week by week it decreased, and in a month or so she was able to sleep through the night. This was the biggest relief, as at the beginning she used to eat her produce when I wasn't fast enough to remove it in the middle of the night
finding the best treatment at the vet. When Nara had diarrhea taking the log to the vet helped in assessing the severity of the problem. My small side notes about the quality of the output helped a lot (i.e. blood in the poop)
better plan and schedule other activities. I was able to calculate how long she can be crated, or how long of a car drive she could take without any accidents
helping the transition to raw diet. At 4 months old I started to change her diet from kibble to raw. It is not an overnight process, and one of the simplest assessment tool during the transition period is the quality, density and quantity of the poop. Logging this information helped me fine tune the macros in her raw diet quite efficiently
accidents are not the dog's fault. I knew this of course, and it was a very good type of slap in the face when an accident happened and I realized it was due to my lack of believing the data.
I kept up with the potty log for a good 6 months. I remember I was hesitant to stop doing it, because it was the simplest and cheapest tool that made Nara's potty training so much easier for me.
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