276. BEHAVIOUR. Pees outside playpen after midnight.

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore

Shih Tzu, Male, 2 months old.

Crate + door + 2 pee pans.
2 weeks with owner.
Urine spray onto inside crate. So, the urine smell attracts the puppy to pee inside the crate onto the pee pans.

But the puppy pees outside the crate at midnight occasionally. Why?

MOST likely, the crate floor is soiled.


Now the owner wants to transfer to common bathroom as toilet area.
Confine to bathroom for few days. Observe.
Try to pee-pan train. Info in other articles in this blog.

275. EQUIPMENT. WIRE NETTING. Smaller holes on crate floor.

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore


Japanese Chin, male, 2 years old.

As a puppy, had crate + pee tray + newspaper. After 1 week, toilet-trained in the crate.

The floor of the crate has much bigger holes. So, the lady owner purchased a wire netting to cover the wire flooring of the crate. In this way, the paws of the Japanese Chin would not fall through the holes.

274. BODY LANGUAGE. Only new newspapers wanted. Yorkshire Terrier puppy.

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore

The lady owner of the Yorkshire Terrier puppy had this observation, "She will inspect the newspaper. If soiled with pee or poop, she will eliminate elsewhere."

"Yes," I said. "Puppies are born to be clean creatures. So, they try not to step on soiled newspapers."

This behaviour is typical of most puppies. Given a choice, they will not pee or poop or soiled areas or papers. This explains why some owners say that the puppy tends to pee outside the edge of newspapers.

The reason being that the papers have had been soiled and not changed.

273. Any solution to older puppy's coprophagia? Ad lib feeding of puppy

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore

This puppy was very smart. When the owners are around, he would not eat the stools. But overnight, he passed stools and ate them!

"How come he passes stools after 10 p.m?" I asked the young couple. "He eats only 1 time per day as he is over 6 months old. Normally, puppy passes stools after eating."

"He passes a few lumps," the young man said. "We feed him at 6 p.m. He will eat some food and then eat all after 10 p.m. After passing the stools around 7 p.m, we would remove the stools. He would know we disallow him to eat. So he would not do it. However, the next day, we can see stool stains but no stools."

"Giving ad lib eating may cause this puppy to poop more than one time," I said. "If he continues this way, he will eat stools past adulthood."

"What's the solution?"

"Probably, take away the feed after 1 hour. No more 'supper' after that."

When the puppy is younger, a restricted feeding schedule encourages stool passing after meals. A free feeding schedule means the puppy poops many times and has the opportunity to eat his own stools.