Wow was I in for a surprise. Here I was thinking how easy this whole house training business was, only to find out I was actually endangering the lives of my puppies.
It all started when my standard poodle gave birth to 10 puppies. They were all in the house, in my entryway of all places, on the only tile floor we have that is big enough for them. I asked several other breeders what they did for the mess, meaning puppy poop and potty (I still use mommy lingo). I was told that the mother takes care of the mess for the first 3 weeks or more, so not to be too concerned. Yes, she eats their poop and licks up their urine. An instinctive thing of course, probably to keep them safe from predators. She also ate each and every sac and placenta as they were born. Another protective measure. But thats another topic.
What about after the first three weeks, what then, I wanted to know. I asked several dog breeders what they do, and found that some use recycled newspaper pellets for bedding and to absorb waste, one uses a roll of plain newspaper (without the print), and another breeder uses untreated wood shavings. I won’t use the newspaper pellets because of concern about ink toxicity, and the wood shavings are more for out door. In place of the plain paper, which would be the best choice for us, I thought I would use potty pads. You know, the kind your elderly loved ones sleep on when they have incontinence issues. These would be easy to lay down, and easy to clean up.
So off to Walmart we went. We bought a big bag of potty pads and my husband created a nice place, through a little doggy door in their pen for them to relieve themselves away from their sleeping place. Even at 6 weeks I wasn’t secure with the idea of taking them outside. We didn’t have our yard fenced in yet, and the idea of 10 puppies scattering all over the yard in different directions horrified me. Then there were the scare stories everyone kept telling with me about hawks, coyotes, and fox running off with small dogs and puppies. We have all of those things, even an occassional eagle will fly over, and a cougar with two cubs has been spotted on the hill behind us.
Then there was the story about our neighbor’s dog. He is a chihuahua, or hawk food, as some call them. As it turns out, there is good reason for that nickname. Our neighbor towards the front of our house shared the following story with us. One day when they were looking out their front window they saw the chihuahua (who belongs to the neighbor towards the back of us) in our front yard hiding under our bird bath. As they watched to see what he was up to, they noticed a hawk circuling above the bird bath. He must have thought this poor dog was the perfect size for a meal, as he seemed determined to get him. After several minutes of this, the dog got up the nerve to run for the back yard towards the trees and his own house. As he ran across the front yard, the neighbors told us the hawk was in close pursuit, and at one point they were sure the hawk was going to catch him because it got close enough to touch the dog’s back with his talons. Just as it did, the dog turned and leaped for the hawk. I don’t know what he must have thought he was going to accomplish, maybe he was just mad enough to bite back. Regardless, it worked! The hawk backed off just long enough to allow the dog to make it under the trees on the other side of the house. This happened in OUR yard! Nope… my puppies weren’t going outside until they were big enough to discourage a hawk.
In the meantime, I needed something to put in the potty room of their indoor pen. I thought the potty pads would absorb well so the smell wasn’t as bad, well, as it could be. And the ones I chose tested to be “safe” to use, and didn’t have as much chemical in them as the super absorbant pads did. What I forgot to test was the safety of the chemicals on the paws of the puppies once they were activated (peed on). In addition to that, I should have tested if they were safe with they were chewed on, ripped apart, and spread all over their pen. Silly me, they’re puppies! In addition, these pads were going to get super wet, not just damp. I was going to have a lot of dogs using the same pad during the night.
They did seem to work fine when the puppies were still pretty little and only peeing small amounts. The puppies actually trained themselves to go on the pad. As they got older though, the smell in the house was so bad, that it was waking me up between 4-5:00 a.m., just because of the smell. And my bedroom isn’t anywhere close to where the puppies are! I didn’t realize until later that it was the chemical in their poop that made their stools smell so bad, and their poor tummies were a mess because of them. The last night we used the pads, I woke up at 3:30 in the morning to a loud commotion in the front room. When I went in to check the puppies and see what was going on, they were running in circles in their pen, flipping over on their backs, chewing their feet and whining. It almost looked as if they were having seizures. And yes, it was as horrifying as it sounds!
I stood and watched them for what seemed like 5 minutes, but was really more like 60 seconds, before I recognized what the biting of the paws had to be about. They were exposed to poison of some sort, but where? How? One by one, at 3:45 in the morning, I carried them into our bathroom and washed their feet. But when I put them back in their pen it started all over again.
There was nothing for them to have gotten into. Well, nothing except the potty pad. A very wet potty pad. And there was poop smeared all over the indoor/outdoor carpet in their pen. I didn’t see it until I turned a spot light on the carpet, because it was still pretty dark in their pen area. I realized then why they were always having soft to runny bm’s when in the house (only at night), and why their stools smelled so bad. They were being poisoned each time they were exposed to the chemicals in the potty pads. So, at 4:30 a.m. I washed their paws again, and took them outside in the wet grass, where it would be cool on their feet and tummies. I stayed there with them until the sun came up. At 6:00 a.m. I took apart their whole pen and thoroughly washed their indoor/ourdoor carpet. The potty pads are never to be used again. Each of the dogs needed rodded with a pad, a wet pad, since the moisture activated the chemicals it contained.
I felt so bad about exposing them to those chemicals, because I should have known better. The chemicals in potty pads are the same as those in menstrual pads, tampons, and disposable diapers for babies (and the elderly). There is always a degree of a health risk when they have chemicals in them, but of course, are more dangerous when they say“super absorbant”on the package. For instance, toxic shock is a possibility when super absorbant tampons are used, hormone and uterine problems can be an issue with super absorbant menstrual pads, sterility was found to be an issue at one particular diaper factory where the workers handled the same chemicals as they were putting them in disposable diapers, and incontinence can become a bigger issue when the elderly use these pads to sleep on. Praise God for protecting these puppies from my foolish mistake.