Dog Toilet help/info/ideas

[SybilThePup]

So we're picking up our new pup next week...very exciting! She's a springer spaniel.

We'd like to create a dog toilet area down one side of our house, to try and keep the lawn area and patio free of pee and poo.

The area (now known as Dog Shit Alley) is 1m wide and the whole depth of the house, front to back. We have a gate at both ends and a side door opening onto it that we use for nothing else so it's the perfect place really. When she's tiny we can try and let her out into Dog Shit Alley without her having access to the rest of the garden at toilet time and when bigger (and hopefully trained to go only in one place, can open up the access from the main garden so she can come and go as she pleases when outside.

Question is, what do we put there? I've done loads of research on pea gravel areas, building a turfed dog toilet (fake or real grass) etc but we're really torn...and wondering if we're just making it too difficult and if the toilet area can just be the concrete it is now, which would be far easier to keep clean. Will she go on concrete? Will it be harder to train her to stick to there as opposed to if it was gravel or grass?

Any help, advice or experience really appreciated :)

Our dog started on a concrete patch of sectioned off patio and was fine - going to toilet there wasn't an issue in terms of what they were going on but we ended up moving his toilet area to a brick patio area fenced off for him as we found the urine really soaked into the concrete and when the sun finally arrived it was smelly. I'm sure I recall looking it up and seeing that concrete will take on the stench! The brick area he has used now for well over a year gets a regular good pressure wash and is fine.

We picked pup up and carried him to his loo area every hour, then two hours etc etc (and through night for first few weeks) and used his "go" phrase (breeder had already instilled this in him - 'toilet, toilet') and excited praise when he went. If he didn't go, he was popped back in his crate for half an hour, then taken back out. As advised by the breeder, for the first few weeks, we would leave the last poo on the surface for him to see it was his loo area and he got it REALLY quickly. He very quickly established indoors as his territory and his crate so has had very few accidents and same in the garden. If his ball accidentally bounces into his loo area we have to wash it in biological detergent to get rid of the urine - understandably he does not want to play with wee soaked toys!

Good luck with new pup - how exciting!

My dog quite happily goes on concrete 🤷🏽‍♀️

Concrete much easier to wash off

but don’t mean to poo poo your plan (pun intended 😂)

our ddog would rather go on the lawn, so given the choice will do that. So you might not be able to give free run

Tried to do this with just concrete and my very sensitive clean freak pup who will limp if so much as a wet blade of grass touches his foot, absolutely did not appreciate my attempt
absorbant ground only for him and I wish I’d realised sooner because those first few weeks would’ve been much easier!
do try because if they’re ok with it, it’s your best option

gravel feels like it could be a nightmare if there’s a runny bum…

Its a good plan to get puppies used to going on all surfaces (makes life much easier when they are older) Also good to get them used to going to for a wee on and off lead.

The perfect solution for training would be to make one area adaptable, so it could have a bit of turf on it for a while and then maybe a bit of gravel for a while and the rest concrete.

In the longterm grass will be less smelly than concrete

Pups develop a preference for what surface they go to the toilet on quite young, worth asking the breeder if they've started any toilet training and continuing on the same surface.
But she's young enough that she can easily be taught to go on concrete if that's what you want, key thing is to take her out after every sleep, feed and play (which is probably at least once an hour for the first month) so she has plenty of opportunity to get it right, and give her lots of praise and treats when she gets it right. If she has accidents inside don't make a big deal about it and don't tell her off, otherwise she might learn not to go in front of you even outside and that's when dogs start going behind sofas etc.
Best of luck!

My dog won't poo on concrete - it has to be grass. I know other dogs who refuse to go on grass!

Honestly, just see what surface your dog prefers and go from there.

Fake grass will smell. Either real grass, gravel or plain concrete but puppies like something soft, like carpets...