[linnealand]

We live in an apartment building in a city in italy, and we're getting a 2 month old puppy.

We want to potty train him to go outside, but there's a wrench that's going to be thrown into his being able to have the same place to train in the early months.

We go down to our beach house for the whole month of August, and while we're in the area we also stay at my hubby's family's house for unplanned days (usually 2 or three days at a time - sometimes more, sometimes less, usually every week or so) during that month away. This means that we're going to be sleeping and living in 3 different houses while our puppy is still very young and before he could ever be properly potty trained. When we leave for our trip, our puppy will be exactly 3 months old, which is tiny.

We're trying to figure out the best and least confusing way to potty train him. As I said, we want him to learn to pee outside. How confusing will it be if we are always switching houses? Obviously, we will have to use exactly the same schedule wherever we go to make it as consistent as we can. Still, will this really confuse him, or will he catch on easily? I'm wracking my brain with this one, so if you have any real solutions or strong opinions, please share them! We're bringing his crate/den with us so that he always has the same puppy house/bed/safe place.

I was thinking that wee-wee pads might be a great idea because they are exactly the same, no matter where we are. The only thing is that we don't want him to become dependent on them as an adult. We would like to stop using the wee-wee pads sometime after we get back home, when he is 4 months old. Does anyone have any experience with this? This is one of our biggest questions.

Also, I was thinking that wee-wee pads might be a good solution no matter what, i.e.. Instead of or in addition to newspapers, to keep in his playpen when we're not home since he will still be too young to be able to physically control his bladder properly. Am I understanding the mechanics of how this works? Or would this be a mistake?

Any advice you can give us would be tremendously appreciated.

[carolbcac]

I think that either method could work. Puppies tend to pay attention to the type of surface they eliminate on, rather than indoors vs. outdoors. If you decide to train him outdoors, make sure he will have the same type of substrate available at all three houses. Dirt would be the obvious choice, except that the beach house will have sand! Is there grass available in all three locations? A downside of outdoor training is the puppy will not have finished his vaccine series and could have an increased risk of exposure to parvo.
If you decide to use indoors, either newspaper or pee pads are OK. I like newspaper better because it is less expensive and less mess if the puppy chews it. Crate training is my preference, if you are going to be able to let the puppy out often. (At 3 months he should be able to go about 4 hours at a time.) If I am going to be gone extended periods I use a puppy play pen or small bathroom instead of a crate. I line the entire area except where the puppy eats and sleeps. He should instictively avoid these for elimination, so he will probably potty on the papers. As time goes by, I put less and less newspaper down, until they are only in a small area as far away from the food and bed as possible. Most puppies follow the paper.
No matter what you choose, one trick is to blot up some urine or save a piece of wet newspaper in a ziplock bag until next potty time. Put the wet material down in the desired spot to help him remember what the area is for.

[linnealand]

Thanks so much for your answers. The part about the substrate is particularly helpful. I had never thought about that, but it makes sense. Luckily, we will have a rather constant material at each of the places, which is chiseled stone or concrete (well, let's hope he finds them similar enough... ).

We are definitely going to crate train him, especially because of the travel. This way he will have the same bed/den/house wherever we go.

My big remaining question is this: if we train him to go on wee-wee pads and/or newspaper inside AND we're training him to do his business outside, will we ever be able to get him to *only* go outside when he's a little older?