Meant to Bee Litter - Potty Training Foundations

August 23rd 1:04 PM

Welcome new friends and thank you for Beeing here! you might notice you will see dirty potty pads, and what looks like dirty bedding in the pictures. There is a reason for both and it is all about building strong, potty foundations for the rest of the pups life.

1. In this group you can. #pottypost and see all of the potty training information

2. Sometimes the pictures are right away in the morning before I have cleaned their whelping box or pen. But the other piece of it is we need to keep the potty pads a little bit dirty because the pups need to be guided there by site and smell.

3.  the pellets you see on the potty pads are alfalfa pellets. They serve two purposes.

A. They smell like grass, so it helps to drive the pups to go where it smells like grass and helps to have the smell of grass trigger their potty instincts.

B. It helps keep it a little bit cleaner because every day I change either the potty pads so they’re nice and fresh and leave the alfalfa so the pups still have the smell or the opposite. I don’t change the alfalfa in the potty pads the same day

4. The bedding is always clean but it is stained. I ONLY use disposable potty pads in the potty area so it feels different to them. The bedding is stained because birth is gross and the mamas leak a lot of stuff from the uterus for weeks afterwards. And I use lighter colored bedding one possible so I can tell what is coming out and I can tell if the puppies are using their potty pads or going on the bed. 

8/13/24

Today's #pottypost ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN.

When I started in dog training in 2002 the trend was called "errorless house training" and the premise was to use hyper vigilance and hyper intensity to prevent any and all accidents. Lock your dog in a crate to small to pee in if you have to so much as use the bathroom yourself. Besides being a great way to make the crate an uncomfortable place and create separation and crate anxiety, the tremendous pressure is unhelpful. It creates a sense of failure, shame, and fear about the future that are completely unfounded.

I bought into this even as recently as bringing home Neville who was 2 pounds at the time in February of 2022. I was determined to "do it right" and "not be lazy". I remember losing it yelling at Jonah because Neville had an accident at the door of his room when he was trying to get out. Jonah started crying, I felt terrible and it did not bring us one step closer to house training. When simply cleaning it up with a oxy bomb such as "My Pet Peed" and moving on would have.

Accidents are part of the process and stringent clean up is key as is learning from them more about your dogs habits and thought process. But it is not reason to yell at your kids, dogs, or beat yourself up. House training takes a while and accidents for the first year are normal. Be patient with yourself, your family and your puppy. Just clean up, notice if there is something you can do different next time and move on.

All overnight potties except one on the potty pad! Not bad 3 week old baby !

We can also see from the potty spot that whoever didn’t make it was heading in the right direction. And potty at the edge of the bed is pretty common because they are looking at and smelling the potty pad. So for this stage in the game that is great. Not a worry.

They are tiny babies. The whole key for breeders and then when families take over is to move with their instincts. Not try to control or “train” them. As I say in every potty post. For both humans and dogs training is a misnomer. We’re just developing habits and preferences. Many adults struggle when they go to foreign countries in the bathrooms and potty practices work differently than what they’re used to. Or young children who are potty trained have accidents on airplanes because the situation is uncomfortable and different. We’re not “trained”. We just have developed habits and preferences that are comfortable.

As breeders, we chose to create these lives. We owe it to them to do literally everything in our power to equip the dog the very best life possible. And understanding their development and behavior and habits is a key part of that. And that leads to developing the potty preference. #pottypost

 All overnight potties except one on the potty pad! Not bad 3 week old baby !

We can also see from the potty spot that whoever didn’t make it was heading in the right direction. And potty at the edge of the bed is pretty common because they are looking at and smelling the potty pad. So for this stage in the game that is great. Not a worry.

They are tiny babies. The whole key for breeders and then when families take over is to move with their instincts. Not try to control or “train” them. As I say in every potty post. For both humans and dogs training is a misnomer. We’re just developing habits and preferences. Many adults struggle when they go to foreign countries in the bathrooms and potty practices work differently than what they’re used to. Or young children who are potty trained have accidents on airplanes because the situation is uncomfortable and different. We’re not “trained”. We just have developed habits and preferences that are comfortable.

As breeders, we chose to create these lives. We owe it to them to do literally everything in our power to equip the dog the very best life possible. And understanding their development and behavior and habits is a key part of that. And that leads to developing the potty preference. #pottypost

Somebody took their first poop by themselves! Apparently Potty Training starts today!

I didn’t see who it was because my WebCam is not set to record. But I came in the room and found four puppies asleep together on the heating pad, but someone had moved over to the potty area pooped and came back!!!!!!

To set them up for early potty training, using the puppy culture method will start by just having the potty pad there and take advantage of their instincts to get up and leave the pack to potty and then come back. The potty pad may look dirty in the pictures because they need to be guided by site and smell. We will gradually add alfalfa so they are driven to go where it smells like grass.

My favorite thing about the Puppy Culture approach is the early potty training. The puppies will still need to be house trained with vigilance and being taken out frequently in their new homes. But with this approach, they are already driven to go where it smells like grass and to sense when they have to go. And the litter is a great back up in case of bad weather or if the family cannot get home in time. 

On the breeder Facebook groups, I see a lot of posts of breeders who are trying this and can’t figure out why it isn’t working. 

One reason is they put the litter in a place of their choosing and they want the puppies to find it. I’ve had this work, but a better idea is to set it up so the puppies can’t miss. As soon as they start moving away from their sleeping pile to potty watch where they go and place potty pads according to where they’re naturally going to go, so you force them into the right place.

The other reason is they wait too long. They wait until the puppies are in a weaning pen and sometimes have started solid food. You need to start in the whelping box as soon as they start shimmying away to go potty.



Lastly, I don’t use disposable potty pads for anything except potty. Even at this age, they have the sense of touch and can feel a different substrate and begin to use that one for potty.

I use nondisposable pads that feel differently to line the whelping box during the early days.

8/9/24

 We are adding some grass smell to the potty. Why and why now? Why- Because “how do I teach them to tell me when they have to go?” is the age old and possibly most maddening question of the dog behavior world. YOU DONT. You develop a strong substrate preference and train yourself to watch for when your dog is trying to get to that substrate. For most people this substrate is grass.

The reason I post so much about this is because the work of developing that substrate preference starts as soon as the puppies are moving away from the pile to potty. This is in the first week or two of life.

I have potty pads everywhere except their bed so they will be set up to go on the right substrate. Keeping the potty pads a bit dirty is key as they need to be guided by smell and now possibly sight to the desired potty spot.

So we aren’t “teaching” them anything. We are just developing and leveraging their natural instincts in a way that leads to house training. 

So why add alfalfa? Doesn’t that just look like turds in the pictures?

Alfalfa is grass. So using this formative time to develop a substrate preference that smells like grass will be helpful for long-term house training.

I started today for two reasons.

1. They haven’t started eating solids yet. Once they do, they’re going to start to put everything in their mouth. Getting ahead of that helps so they won’t see it as food and try to eat it. 

2. They have had two days in a row of nobody  the bed. We could just stay with potty pads, but adding an element that smells like grass will likely help with building a long term grass substrate preference. 

If they avoid the potty area because of the alfalfa smell or start to eat it, we can go back to just using potty pads. That is still a plenty good house training foundation to send them into life with. But if we can add the alfalfa, it will be that much better.

8/3/24

POTTY NOTE: the puppies are guided by smell to the potty area. Therefore part of the success of the foundational training is making sure they can smell where to go. So we pick up all the poop, but you will see potty on the potty pads in pictures. It needs to be left there to keep guiding them back to the right spot.

8/7/24 

Both Honey and Bumble moved to the potty spot this time. Honey still wanted mom to take care of him. (he is still a tiny baby after all ) but moved to the potty spot for her to do it. That is some lovely instincts.

 The Bees had their first adventure to the  ball pit today!! Like everything we intentionally curated the experience to develop them emotionally mentally and physically.

The kids put the balls in to match each signature color.

 I set them up for potty success by using a dirty potty pad so they would be guided by scent to go and continue to differentiate the potty pad from the towel. NO ACCIDENTS! Also note they did not use the clean potty pad on the other side. It goes to show they just smell where to go. They don’t really “know” or think about it like we do. And this is why accident cleanup in the home is so critical to potty training and success. If they can smell it, they will keep going there.

I laid a towel to give them traction, but put their heating pad under it so their first adventure would not be to a cold, scary world. It will also bring the smell of their whelping box into their new environment.

Zaley did pretty well with her pups being in a new place.

8/9/24

Potty bells are fabulous. But they are your last step, not the first. You have to drive a preference hard enough that they will do something as arbitrary is ringing a bell to get it. Much like we might go to a little extra effort to get a nice bathroom rather than a porta potty. 

And they are the cherry on top. Extra nice but not necessary.

They work because the dog wants to get outside badly enough that they can learn that a bell will make the door open. If they are peeing inside, it is not because they have to go but can’t tell you. It’s because going inside feels comfortable enough.

Their thought process is not. “I have to go pee. I will ring a bell and get let outside.”

If going outside is a strong preference, their thought process is”out out out out out out out” and the bell is a way to communicate and get what they really want.

Even though we are “potty trained” it really isn’t training. People cut corners on training, forget, or skip it when it doesn’t make sense. We use the bathroom reliably because it’s a preference. 

8/23/24

 interesting potty note for those house training a puppy to understand. we can see in this picture that Stripy found his potty, but Bumble is peeing the rug. This is because the pad under it has pee on it. I don’t change the sub pads every day because they keep their rugs and towels pretty clean. But as I was changing it last night, I noticed some of the pee from the pee pad was soaking up onto it. I thought about changing it, but it’s a lot of work and it was tired so I decided to let it go for one more day. But SMELL CONQUERS ALL.

So, even if your rugs are clean, they can smell what’s under it and it will trigger them to go. And this is going to trump any kind of substrate preference.

8/5/24

Well this is a lovely sight to wake up to. All the potty on the pads and none in the bed!! 

For those just joining us:

1. The puppies need to be guided to the right spot by smell. So we do pick up the poop, but you have to leave the pads a bit dirty to guide them back to the right spot. So you will see that in the pictures. 

2. The only time I used disposable potty pads is for the potty spot so it feels differently to them than their blankets. So anything you see on the blankets is staining. I keep the box very clean But as much as possible, I do like the lighter color blankets so I can see what Mom is leaking (birth is gross) and if the puppies are using their bed or their potty pads. 

I realize from a public image standpoint it’s better to just show a pristine box. Part of the purpose of this group is for families to see what is going on because that will matter in how they continue the potty training. And I believe in sharing knowledge, and there are other breeders on this group who I have learned a lot from and sharing best practices helps all dogs.

Lastly, there are people on this group who have no plans to get one of the bees. They are just here to learn and see the adorable puppy pics and maybe have a diversion from everything else on social media right now. But they are dog lovers and will get dogs at some point and learning what to watch for in the breeders is key

8/15/24

 More potty pictures. I can’t help it. I am so proud of these little nuggets. For those just joining us, the alfalfa pellets help drive them to go where it smells like grass. 

9/10/24

They’ve had several days of 100% potty pad use. So we’ve added more “soft substrate” floor covering.  still found the right place on the first try!!I use blankets rather than carpet so I can do smaller areas and gradually increase and it is machine washable. I am also starting to watch them with more vigilance and take them to the potty area if I see them start to go. Up until now I have just been setting up and adjusting the environment to take advantage of their natural instincts.

They will still need to be potty trained once they go home. But this gives them the very best start possible. #pottypost