Adopting a dog from a Thai shelter

[SoiPup]

Hello
We live in Bangkok and fell in love with an adorable older pup (about 9 months) when volunteering in a shelter when on holiday - poor little thing was too gentle and soft to be moved with her litter mates to the enclosure for the 'teenage' dogs, bless her. The pup is being sent to us and arriving tomorrow.
I've owned dogs before but never puppies and never had to deal with toilet training - all the advice I read seems to be focused on trainign younger puppies.
Also we live in an apartment so won't have immediate access to a garden.
Any advice on how we deal with this? Anyone toilet trained older pups/adult dogs?

Oh, and she's not ever walked on a lead before either so we'll need to figure that one out too.

Hi, did you get you pup from Soi Dogs Foundation? Strangely I got a cat from them many years ago when I lived in BKK!

I’ve toilet trained (and other training) an older puppy and to be honest followed the same instructions as for a younger puppy. Initially though I didn’t reward them but I got better ‘on cue’ results with a reward which was helpful as whilst not in a high rise apartment I didn’t have grass close by.

Other people will no doubt weigh in on the pros and cons of puppy pads... I’ve never used them but depending on where you are in BKK and how high a floor you’re on, a puppy pad may be a useful way to start.

Good luck and enjoy your time with your dog.

No, not from Soi Dog Foundation,, getting her from Samui Dog and Cat Resue. It's really a desperate situation there as many dogs are starving since there are now far fewer restauarnts, bars and tourists, many people have also just left the island since there are no tourists (the place is a ghost town in some areas) and just dumped their pets plus their volunteers and donations have dried up. They have literally hundreds of dogs there (they only keep the dogs which can't survive on the streets for whatever reason) and they are trying their best to take care of the dogs in the shelter and the street dogs but you can see it's overwhelming :(

Our little lady has been in the shelter since she was a small puppy so hasn't been on the streets and she's only ever been in with the pups.
I got some training pads and hope to use them on the balcony. I think i'll get a crate as well since she knows already not to mess where they all sleep.

I can just imagine the tourist areas in Thailand are really struggling now.. I worked in Phuket for a while so I know how much they depend on tourism... Koh Samui particularly.

Crate is an excellent idea and it will give her somewhere she can feel safe and secure which she will need.

If you’ve got a balcony you may want to consider one of those toilet trays with the fake grass on.. that might work but you’ll have to rinse it a lot as in the heat it will become unpleasant quite quickly...

Good luck with her

@PuppyFeet

I can just imagine the tourist areas in Thailand are really struggling now.. I worked in Phuket for a while so I know how much they depend on tourism... Koh Samui particularly.

Crate is an excellent idea and it will give her somewhere she can feel safe and secure which she will need.

If you’ve got a balcony you may want to consider one of those toilet trays with the fake grass on.. that might work but you’ll have to rinse it a lot as in the heat it will become unpleasant quite quickly...

Yes, Koh Samui is really bad. Phuket has more local tourism to keep it afloat but Samui was very geared to foreigners.

We're on 16th floor of a high rise. Starting to wonder what we're letting ourselves in for - never owned a dog in an apartment and BKK is a very dog unfriednly city (we have a park close by but dogs aren't allowed in) but DH is off to airport to pick her up so I hope this goes well!!