# is it okay to have multiple pee pads?



## chombiekay (Jul 15, 2014)

2 pups, 12 weeks. not really house trained.

hi mates and thank you sincerely for reading this. i have two pups in separate playpens (with crates in each). the play pens are about 3ft x 3ft each.

although we do our best to get home mid day, sometimes there will be a 5 - 6 hour spell between us getting back so we leave the pee pads in the play pens. we also have a pee pad in our bathroom that one of the pups is used to.

currently they still go all over the place. it seems like they DO go in their pee pad when it's in their play pen, but when i let them out, it's a gamble. sometimes they go on their own pen's pee pad, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes just on the wood floor.

are we doing this all wrong? i would eventually like to train them for outdoor/pee pad or JUST outdoor.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

Teaching them that it's OK to potty inside---even on a pad---can be really confusing for them. I personally would not teach them to use the pee pads, just outside. But using them for absorbancy in places where you think the pups might go is OK, just don't encourage them to use the pads.


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## Kayota (Aug 14, 2009)

It would be best to have 0 pee pads. My nearly seven year old dog still pees on the bath mat because she was raised using puppy pads.


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

Agreed with the above, the best number of pee pads is 0.

A lot of dogs who have been taught to use pee pads, will also use bathmats, doormats, and anything else that looks vaguely like a pee pad. Teach them to go outside instead.

Plus pee pads are gross, and I don't know why anyone would want them in the house for the next 15 years.


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## Hambonez (Mar 17, 2012)

I put a pee pad down in my dog's expen when he was a puppy. He couldn't hold it the 4 hrs between leaving for work and lunch time. In his pen area, he had his bed in his open crate, and then a pad, and no other soft surface so while we didn't train him to use it, he gravitated to it. When we were home there were no pads accessible and he went outside exclusively. That meant we ran him outside every 15 minutes when he was very young (dead of winter, upstate NY at that!), and gradually increased the time as he got older. Between 12 and 16 wks old, he stopped using the pad between breakfast/lunch and lunch/after work, and so we took them away. He NEVER goes inside as an adult, not my house, not friends/family's houses, not inside anywhere. He can hold it 12 hrs (not that we ever make him but if the weather is bad he'll refuse to go out, and eventually we have to just carry him outside). So I don't think you're going to do any permanent harm by having pads down when they're penned, but I wouldn't encourage their use or leave them accessible when you are home! There's no reason for it if you plan on having the dogs go outside the rest of their lives.


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## BostonBullMama (Apr 20, 2013)

Toby had a pee pad for about a week when we got him (11 weeks old), we encouraged him to go outside rather than on the pad and the pad ended up being used for emergencies only (ie: we had forgotten to take him out and he really needed to go, he would go to the spot automatically and poop, never pee).

He was trained to use the balcony (emergencies) and grass downstairs by 3-4 months. We decided to train him to be reliable on the balcony rather than using it as a bathroom when we moved to our new apartment just last February (Toby would have been 1 year, 4 months). He has not used our balcony to go to the bathroom since. He will be turning 2 in October. 

In my case, Toby picks up fast - you may not be so lucky and I could have easily ended up one of those posters asking how to get my dog to stop - so the best thing is to just train your dog to potty where you want him to potty long-term rather than using confusing short stops and halfway points.


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