Saturday, February 27, 2010

How my dog has been choosing to use her 'pooch pads'.


Yep, they're meant to be for peeing on. Sigh. She's recently taken to napping on them, which wouldn't be so bad when they are clean if the carpet under my sewing desk hadn't been newly christened - and if you've ever tried cleaning carpet under an immovable object... it's not easy!

Lucky she's cute! (and it's not like she doesn't have a plethora of beds all over the place!)

Normally the pooch pads work really well. We're in an apartment and have no back yard, even though the park is over the road it's a good thing to have a back up for overnight or when no-ones home.

To make the pooch pad I measured up some incontinent bed pads for elderly people (you can buy them in bulk and they are cheaper and larger then ones you buy for puppy training). I then went to an art supply store and got a wooden slats (usually for stretching canvas on) that would make a frame just big enough to fit the pooch pads with a little overlap in the middle. I stretched some printed thick plastic (available on the roll at Bunnings or Spotlight) as if I was doing a canvas and staple gunned it to the frame back, ensuring it was loose enough that when I flipped it right side up I could push the plastic down into the frame. This gives a flat surface for the pads. Because I sized it so they extend up onto the wooden sides of the frame if she does pee right on the edge it runs back down onto the pad and not the carpet. 

Just wish I'd thought of it about two years earlier!!

3 comments:

  1. There are a couple of things out but nothing that suits an apartment - pads by themselves have 'run off' if the pet goes too close the edge and the fake grass plastic tray thing has to be emptied and hosed off (ewww really don't want to do that in the bath!).

    You can get washable pooch pads too which I've also tried but they can leak if she goes at the start of the night and you don't find them til morning. Environmentally the water / detergent and sanitiser you use with washables is about the same amount of bad as manufacture and disposing of the disposables (well according to research I did online about nappies). These ones absorb the pee too which means that the top stays dry and doesn't smell, so she can go more than once on any one. No idea how to get into manufacturing this sort of thing, it was an invention born out of need. My carpet was on it's way to a nervous breakdown :)

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  2. Speaking of carpets and immovable objects, I just had that nightmare last week! You see, we have this piano that weighs A LOT and it sat right on top of the spot where our dog made its smelly marks. So the carpet cleaners (Greensboro, NC-based) that I hired had a hard time moving the piano to clean the carpet. I eventually gave up and allowed them to clean with the piano on the way. Well, sometimes you have to make compromises in carpet cleaning. Greensboro, NC cleaners removed the stains successfully, and that's what's important.

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