I haven’t 17-year-old dog who has always gone outside. We have recently moved to an area that has lots of rain and snow and she won’t go out to do her business. What’s the best product to use to train her to go indoors?
2 Answers
They have indoor artificial turf pads for this sort of thing now. There is a plastic tray on the bottom that you clean off regularly so there is no odor. This is a great longer term solution to save money as it is much cheaper to maintain than replacing disposable potty pads at the store every week. It also is more environmentally friendly with less trash going out the door. Just clean and reuse the turf. Amazon has a wide variety for various prices depending on size and durability.
This kind of depends on if they have arthritis or mobility issues, or if they hate the cold or the wet of your new places outside conditions.
My dog passed recently and was 16.5, which is old for a medium sized dog. Because he had arthritis, that we mostly managed by shark cartilage sticks alone ... we mostly solved the inside urination issues (in winter), but we struggled for a long while to adapt his diet to have enough fibre to have solid stools, meaning we would frequently have to carry and rush him to the door.
He wanted to go outside, he knew he didnt want to sleep where he pee-ed and did poos, but at his age the effort and frequency of getting off his bed sometimes became too much. Once his stools were solved the main time he went indoors was as you said, when it was cold and drizzly outside.
What I am about to offer mightn't be practical for you, but we solved it by carrying him outside and under a 4 x 4 yard waterproof roofed area. It was much easier to clean up off the bricks than inside the house. In winter we also put a coat over him, because older dogs struggle to regulate their heat as much as younger dogs can. If he was warm, and we could carry him between the house and the rain proof structure (only a few yards) - he was fine with it.
I found out that as our dog aged, he often didnt do things that he normally wouldn't because it was easier or he had any mind loss, it was just too hard for him to push off the bed and make it through the door, then get rained on.
We had to think a lot harder about what the issues really were, and be smart enough to make his life easier again. This meant for pain relief, short outings to his favourite off lead dog park, and night pees or poos. Just my view, hope it helps. b
