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First time post... question about potty training in an apartment
We live on the 10th floor of an apartment complex, in the city and have an 9 week old bulldog puppy.
We were doing fairly well with potty training. Most of the time his pees/poos were outside, some were on the pee pads in the bathroom and an occasional accident (mostly of the urine kind) on the carpet.
Because it's a city and he is still so young I just took him right outside the apartment to a little flower bed. There is a grassy area about a block away where everyone else took their dogs so I stayed away from there. The area of town we live in is mostly business buildings, a few hotels with a few apartment complexes around. My complex along with the other complexes all require proof of shots. So I felt comfortable taking him right outside the place.
Here is the problem. One of his litter mates came down with parvo. None of the other litter mates, mom or brother are sick. They do not live near us and from what I've heard they also took the puppy to Houston right after getting him so who knows where he contacted the virus.
Anyway, we are both scared (as we should be). Should we just scrap taking him outside and just stick with inside peeing until he gets is last round of shots? Part of me think it's a step backwards because I really do not want him going to the bathroom inside, but of course his health is more important.
**note we do not have a balcony. So that's out. We do live one door down from the exit staircase that has a large landing. It was suggested we might use that in the mean time. Not sure how management would react though.
Re: First time post... question about potty training in an apartment
I think he should be ok to continue to go right outside. I think you're doing the right thing to limit his exposure until he gets his shots, but I don't think you're putting him at too much risk by just taking him right outside.
I'm not a fan of teaching dogs to go inside at all, though, as I think it can be very confusing to them and prolong housetraining.
Ditto PP. I was *just* telling a coworker this morning that if I could do it all over again, I would have house broken from the beginning (we used a combo of the pee pads and taking our girl out for the first year, terrible idea). After which, she told me about an unhousebroken 2 y/o bulldog she'd adopted, who, after two months of kenneling, tethering, etc., she could not house break. Bulldogs are notoriously hard to housebreak, so I would definitely not try switching to an indoor pee pad with one.
My dog was also exposed to Parvo at 8 weeks by a puppy the breeder recieved just before I got her. The breeder I used gave shots to all of her puppies to prevent Parvo, can you inquire with your breeder as to whether or not that was something she did? If you're still concerned, you can take your puppy to the vet to be tested; however, I'd think the symptoms would have come on pretty quickly if your puppy had gotten Parvo from the puppy that is now in Houston. Parvo is pretty scary, but I think you'll be fine!
Pee pads will make potty training a nightmare because they are just confusing to the dog. If there is any feasible solution to going potty outside I would jump on it!
Can we see pics?? I lurve bulldog puppies!
I don't have Parvo experience, but for pure housebreaking purposes, I agree with getting rid of the pee pads (it's just confusing). Unless there is a real danger to taking him outside to potty, I think it's the best way to go long-term. The few dogs I know who are "pee pad trained" are not what I would call housebroken. They often "miss" the pad or don't even really try to go on it at all, and they often have accidents at other people's homes because they don't really understand that they shouldn't potty inside.
Thanks for all the responses.
He went in for his 2nd round of shots and a wellness checkup on Tuesday. Everything checked out fine. We found out about the other puppy on Wednesday.
We've been looking for symptoms and haven't noticed any as of yet, but we are looking all the time.
I would rather not have the pee pads, but it was suggested to us as a good idea because he is so young and it takes a while to get actually outside (long hallway, elevator, etc). DH jumped on the idea.
I am having good success taking him out and finally getting DH onboard on that this is the way we should be going when we found out about the parvo puppy. Now he is scared. I'm going to work on him a little more to ease his mind.