Notes From Kirby's Foster Mom

Hello,

I know everyone has a lot of questions about Kirby, so thought I would start to answer some of them.

What's on everyone's mind when there is a new puppy in the house? Potty-training!

Here is a picture of Kirby's set-up. He has his crate at the back of the pen for sleeping. You can see him napping at the very back of the crate. The area next to the crate is where he likes to nap when he gets hot. When the weather was cooler, I had a little blanket there for him, but now that it is hot, I leave it as a cool place to sleep.

I put paper towels in the area where I want him to go potty. After he went there once, I left the paper towels there for the day, so he would smell the urine and know that is where he is supposed to go.

Now, I can clean it up, and he still knows to go there. He does not like to poo in his pen, and will make a fuss until we take him outside. But, if he has to go in the pen, he always goes on the paper towels.

We only let him out to play in the house after he has gone potty, to minimize the chance of an accident. If we are not watching him, he goes in the pen. When we take him out of the pen, we take him straight outside to potty.

Since we have started training this way, he only has maybe one pee accident a day in the house and has never gone potty in his bed.

Dogs have a natural desire to be clean. We just need to give them the tools to ensure their potty-training success.

Let me know if you have any other questions about Kirby...


Deanna