Showing posts with label house training problems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house training problems. Show all posts

Thursday, 8 November 2012

DIY Puppy Pee Pads

I believe that it's inevitable that this winter will result in many "puppy accidents" inside.
Daisy has already made it clear she hates the cold winter, and that she cannot hold her bladder for the duration of the night. 

The hormones have helped. There have been significantly fewer accidents. 
A puppy pad has been placed out and she has taken to it. 

But, the downside is that I HATE PUPPY PADS. 
I bought the eco friendy ones. They SUCK.
I don't want to buy them, or throw them out.
Like femine hygiene bads and diapers, they probably don't decompose in the landfill very well. 

So! I've decided to make my own! 


There aren't many tutorials. So I kinda winged it.
I used what I know about making my feminine hygiene pads to make them. 
Because it uses PUL fabric it was slightly expensive. 

Materials:
Diaper Flannel (twice as much)
Flannel. (I found cute puppy dog fabrics)
PUL Fabric (waterproof stuff)
Thread. 

I bought 1.4 metres of flannel and pul and made 6 training pads! 


I choose dimensions that were half the width of the fabric, and then into thirds. Turned out to be 19inches by 22 inches. This was super rough. And I trimmed a lot more down. 



Then the pattern fabric was fused to two layers of diaper flannel. 
when I say fused. i mean I stitched lopsided squares into it. I didn't really make a lot of effort to be super precise. I figured it was just a pee pad. 

Then with right sides together, I matched the flannels with the pul fabric. 
After trimming up some edges they were stitched together


That's right, turn it inside out, and iron! 


I like to leave a gap in the middle of one side (instead of a corner. 
I iron it all together and then do a top stitch around the whole thing. 


Final Product.

Put it down in the puppy pee area (this area needs to be changed)




So far,  nobody has used them. 
Then again nobody has gone inside.
I hope to find some of that puppy urine spray, or wait for an accident to happen and rub it all over it so they know that this is where to go.

Hubby is worried that they'll want to take naps on it. 


Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Daisy's Hormones

We should have taken the health insurance offer from the SPCA when we adopted Daisy.

I knew we had a problem because she was 3 years 6 months when we got her and she wasn't house trained. But I shrugged it off. There were lots of changes going on in her life. 

It's been 3 months, and the accidents aren't getting better. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes during the day. Sometimes it looks like she was headed outside, but then, she just went. And, I've never seen it happen, but I THINK it's Daisy. I'm 95% sure it is. 

The boarder where we take our dogs suggested that Daisy drinks WAY LOTS of water. 
She suggested we take her to the vet. We trusted her. 

I hummed and hawwed. And then I woke up to pee stains on my bedroom carpet and the vet was being called. Brought her in the next day. 
***

She's lost a little weight. She's on the slim side the vet explains.

Oh Uh. 

As a shih tzu cross she is prone to kidney failure.

Awesome. 

We'll just do a blood work up to check and see whats going on. 

Okay. 

It could just be that she has a weak sphynctor. 

Oh, and I guess you can't teach your dog to do kegels. 

Or maybe she's anatomically built weird, like an extra large vagina which pools urine and it just releases. 

Oh F**k. I hope not. 
***

Anyways, after an anxious 8 hours, the vet finally called back with the results: NORMAL

Sweet. 
But, because it might be her sphnctory hormones.
Expensive hormones because the cheaper ones she says not the safest for my dog. 
Okay. I trust.

Now, twice a day hormones. And then one half a pill every week. 
The joys of having a furbaby.



Update: Success. It's been working.
Less accidents. 
On her follow up appt the Doctor suggested I get her dewormed since she shows an abnormailty in her bloodwork that is linked to having a weakness to worms... awesome...

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