28. The wood shavings toilet-area for the Shih Tzu
Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore
Shih Tzu, female, gold/white with light brown eyes.
Play pen with 4 pieces of fences + aluminium tray + newspaper placed in the balcony as the kitchen is too small. A curtain prevents rain from splashing onto the play pen. With the family for 14 days and the children are very fond of her.
lst few days. Barks the whole night. Diarrhoea (due to drinking milk). Messes up newspapers. Very dirty. What should the mother of a primary school girl and two secondary school boys do? Give up the puppy? Return to the pet shop? A kennel operator boarded her at a commercial boarding kennel for two nights. The operator advised the following:
1. Use wood shavings instead of newspapers. The shavings keep the puppy cleaner and drier than newspapers. It was a satisfactory solution but there are recurring costs involved.
2. Ad lib feeding since the puppy is not that greedy and knows its limit. Therefore, there is no need to take away the feed within 15 minutes. However, this puppy is thin.
3. Canned food is a waste of time. For thin puppies, canned food mixed with dry food may improve appetite and weight gain.
Water is usually added to the dry feed to soften the hardness. Milk is another possibility. In this puppy, there was diarrhoea. It could be due to the milk and/or the stress of changing environment. Milk given in dilute form may not cause diarrhoea and puppies just love milk. Milk added to the dry feed seems to attract more eating.
4. Bring the puppy downstairs to the grass twice a day and it would be toilet-trained. The 3-month-old puppy pees a lot and poops around 3 to 4 times at this age, if feed twice per day, from feedback from various owners. Therefore, twice a day would not be sufficient to toilet train her. In any case, the owner could only bring her down in the evening.
5. Cover up the play pen so that the puppy feels secure and would not bark. This seems to be working after the puppy came back from the boarding kennel.
MY COMMENTS on the above:
Regarding point 1, , the use of wood shavings as litter, just as in cats has been recommended by some people during my internet research. This is the first time I have encountered a Singapore puppy owner using it. It definitely keeps the puppy cleaner and drier and she was quite happy with the litter compared to newspapers which are shred and crumbled.
Regarding point 2, the free feeding is not good for toilet training. The puppy usually passes stools within an hour of eating. Now she is given freedom to eat when she wants to. So, there is no urgency to eat all within 15 minutes. This affects bowel control.
Regarding point 3, , canned food has a place in the feeding management of thin puppies. Most puppies eat more when canned food is added. Milk sometimes cause diarrhoea in some puppies.
Regarding point 4, it is difficult to toilet-train the puppy if there is no fixed times to go downstairs. A 3-month-old puppy poops 3 to 4 times a day and pees a lot of times. Just going downstairs twice a day will be insufficient.
Regarding point no. 5, in my opinion, the puppy had been boarded out and have was deprived of attention even if she barked the whole night as the boarding kennels do not have people around after dinner.. With 3 pre-teen children, the new puppy received tremendous amount of attention during the first few days. Suddenly she had to sleep alone. That was why she barked. When she barked, she received the children's attention. This reinforced her barking behaviour. When boarded out, she had to sleep alone and came back "cured." I had another similar case too. This boarding out may be a solution to noisy barking puppies. As long as nobody pays any attention to the puppy during bed-time, she would not bark.
The main issue is that the puppy can never be paper-trained if wood shavings are used. It can be wood shavings trained but the owner was not in favour of using wood shavings for a long time.
This case require the use of the CRATE TRAINING method if the lady owner is home most of the time. If done properly (see other articles in the blog) and CONSISTENTLY, this puppy should be paper-trained within 14 days.
The mother may have lots of time spent in looking after the primary school daughter and two intelligent boys from a premier Chinese school. I did not ask but some young home-makers in Singapore spend a lot of time ferrying their younger ones to schools and back and to various enrichment and tuition classes. This can be quite exhausting. However, the best time to train this puppy is at 3 months and when she is still new to the family.
The above are my quick thoughts for this particular situation. Other owners with the same playpen + Aluminium tray have other solutions. I would need to edit or review later when all the research reports come in.
Please refer to the other articles and let me know by e-mail to judy@toapayohvets.com if you have any questions. Do let me have a few picture of the wood shavings on the aluminium tray as this is a rare practice in Singapore.
SHARING YOUR INSIGHTS:
READERS e-mail to me your problems or solutions. Your queries may be included in the book to help all puppy owners all over the world. E-mail to judy@toapayohvets.com
SPONSORS NEEDED:
Advertisers and sponsors for this book and another book HOW YOUR PUPPY CAN LIVE LONGER?, please e-mail to judy@toapayohvets.com for more info or tel: +65 9668-6468.
Shih Tzu, female, gold/white with light brown eyes.
Play pen with 4 pieces of fences + aluminium tray + newspaper placed in the balcony as the kitchen is too small. A curtain prevents rain from splashing onto the play pen. With the family for 14 days and the children are very fond of her.
lst few days. Barks the whole night. Diarrhoea (due to drinking milk). Messes up newspapers. Very dirty. What should the mother of a primary school girl and two secondary school boys do? Give up the puppy? Return to the pet shop? A kennel operator boarded her at a commercial boarding kennel for two nights. The operator advised the following:
1. Use wood shavings instead of newspapers. The shavings keep the puppy cleaner and drier than newspapers. It was a satisfactory solution but there are recurring costs involved.
2. Ad lib feeding since the puppy is not that greedy and knows its limit. Therefore, there is no need to take away the feed within 15 minutes. However, this puppy is thin.
3. Canned food is a waste of time. For thin puppies, canned food mixed with dry food may improve appetite and weight gain.
Water is usually added to the dry feed to soften the hardness. Milk is another possibility. In this puppy, there was diarrhoea. It could be due to the milk and/or the stress of changing environment. Milk given in dilute form may not cause diarrhoea and puppies just love milk. Milk added to the dry feed seems to attract more eating.
4. Bring the puppy downstairs to the grass twice a day and it would be toilet-trained. The 3-month-old puppy pees a lot and poops around 3 to 4 times at this age, if feed twice per day, from feedback from various owners. Therefore, twice a day would not be sufficient to toilet train her. In any case, the owner could only bring her down in the evening.
5. Cover up the play pen so that the puppy feels secure and would not bark. This seems to be working after the puppy came back from the boarding kennel.
MY COMMENTS on the above:
Regarding point 1, , the use of wood shavings as litter, just as in cats has been recommended by some people during my internet research. This is the first time I have encountered a Singapore puppy owner using it. It definitely keeps the puppy cleaner and drier and she was quite happy with the litter compared to newspapers which are shred and crumbled.
Regarding point 2, the free feeding is not good for toilet training. The puppy usually passes stools within an hour of eating. Now she is given freedom to eat when she wants to. So, there is no urgency to eat all within 15 minutes. This affects bowel control.
Regarding point 3, , canned food has a place in the feeding management of thin puppies. Most puppies eat more when canned food is added. Milk sometimes cause diarrhoea in some puppies.
Regarding point 4, it is difficult to toilet-train the puppy if there is no fixed times to go downstairs. A 3-month-old puppy poops 3 to 4 times a day and pees a lot of times. Just going downstairs twice a day will be insufficient.
Regarding point no. 5, in my opinion, the puppy had been boarded out and have was deprived of attention even if she barked the whole night as the boarding kennels do not have people around after dinner.. With 3 pre-teen children, the new puppy received tremendous amount of attention during the first few days. Suddenly she had to sleep alone. That was why she barked. When she barked, she received the children's attention. This reinforced her barking behaviour. When boarded out, she had to sleep alone and came back "cured." I had another similar case too. This boarding out may be a solution to noisy barking puppies. As long as nobody pays any attention to the puppy during bed-time, she would not bark.
The main issue is that the puppy can never be paper-trained if wood shavings are used. It can be wood shavings trained but the owner was not in favour of using wood shavings for a long time.
This case require the use of the CRATE TRAINING method if the lady owner is home most of the time. If done properly (see other articles in the blog) and CONSISTENTLY, this puppy should be paper-trained within 14 days.
The mother may have lots of time spent in looking after the primary school daughter and two intelligent boys from a premier Chinese school. I did not ask but some young home-makers in Singapore spend a lot of time ferrying their younger ones to schools and back and to various enrichment and tuition classes. This can be quite exhausting. However, the best time to train this puppy is at 3 months and when she is still new to the family.
The above are my quick thoughts for this particular situation. Other owners with the same playpen + Aluminium tray have other solutions. I would need to edit or review later when all the research reports come in.
Please refer to the other articles and let me know by e-mail to judy@toapayohvets.com if you have any questions. Do let me have a few picture of the wood shavings on the aluminium tray as this is a rare practice in Singapore.
SHARING YOUR INSIGHTS:
READERS e-mail to me your problems or solutions. Your queries may be included in the book to help all puppy owners all over the world. E-mail to judy@toapayohvets.com
SPONSORS NEEDED:
Advertisers and sponsors for this book and another book HOW YOUR PUPPY CAN LIVE LONGER?, please e-mail to judy@toapayohvets.com for more info or tel: +65 9668-6468.
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