Indoor dog toilet turf

Hi all,
First day on this forum. Seems like there is loads of good advice here and lots of friendly helpful people.

We are getting a puppy in the New Year and would like to train him to use an indoor toilet as well as go outside as we have a little boat and we want to train him to be ok overnight down in the cabin with us in the future. We've looked at portable toilets and they all seem to be covered with fake grass which looks like it could be chewed and swallowed - and therefore not safe?

I've searched online for toilets which use a cleanable 'mesh' rather than a fake turf, but not found anything convincing. We could use a pad, but we would rather something we could clean and reuse to cut down on waste.

Does anybody have advice on fake turf which cannot be chewed, or other options we could consider?

Hal said:

Hi all,
First day on this forum. Seems like there is loads of good advice here and lots of friendly helpful people.

We are getting a puppy in the New Year and would like to train him to use an indoor toilet as well as go outside as we have a little boat and we want to train him to be ok overnight down in the cabin with us in the future. We've looked at portable toilets and they all seem to be covered with fake grass which looks like it could be chewed and swallowed - and therefore not safe?

I've searched online for toilets which use a cleanable 'mesh' rather than a fake turf, but not found anything convincing. We could use a pad, but we would rather something we could clean and reuse to cut down on waste.

Does anybody have advice on fake turf which cannot be chewed, or other options we could consider?

Click to expand...

There is 'heavy duty' fake turfs available to buy in small sections to fit inside a suitable tray that you may have already handy or get one that would do the job...gravel trays for plants come in many sizes and the quality ones are tough and last for yeeeears, even when exposed to outdoors.
These fake turfs or ones that are for outdoors/ sport turfs are really heavy and will stay put even with best 'scratchers' efforts and will pass liquid waste through.....BUT they are not cheap to start with, but then again you would not be after a large piece so you may even find a suitable 'sample' piece that would work well for your purposes. Look for 'artificial turf/ sport turf'. One thing is that these can be little tricky to cut into size, so unless you already have good tool to deal with cutting it..I would suggest have a piece cut to your tray's size.
We used to have a small bridge like feature over our pond that was covered with artificial sport turf and our dogs used were highly delighted with it...though the pond didn't like the wee that was regularly supplied to 'top up' the water level..
The bristles on these kind of quality sport 'turfs' are designed to cope with high speed bash from the golf clubs and other impacts, so even if your dog would find it interesting to chew something it toilets on, it will take dog teeth with no problem.
Do you know anybody that is a golfer or associated with golf clubs? It may pay to be cheeky and ask nicely... club may have some off cut pieces that are no use for their purposes and be willing to part with one (even if it is used piece) for next to nothing

I just had a look what commercial versions are available and something like this should work... Putting Green Artificial Grass

Is it only overnight he will have to hold? Because that should be easy enough in time, even if you train for outside toilets.

That is a great bit of advice Finsky - many thanks indeed. I followed the link you posted below and that might be just what we need. I'm guessing that with a bit of patience and a decent stanley knife I'll be able to cut it to size (they seem to sell it by the metre squared. Give it a go anyway. Thank you

JoanneF said:

Is it only overnight he will have to hold? Because that should be easy enough in time, even if you train for outside toilets.

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Might need to leave for about 3 hours in a pen, so that's what we want it for.

After he is is past his puppy stage, holding his toilet for 3 hours should be quite easy.

Hal said:

That is a great bit of advice Finsky - many thanks indeed. I followed the link you posted below and that might be just what we need. I'm guessing that with a bit of patience and a decent stanley knife I'll be able to cut it to size (they seem to sell it by the metre squared. Give it a go anyway. Thank you

Click to expand...

Happy help. But don't forget...you will need something underneath the turf as any 'liquid waste' will go through it...hence I mentioned in my previous post 'plant gravel trays'...

Hal said:

We are getting a puppy in the New Year and would like to train him to use an indoor toilet as well as go outside as we have a little boat and we want to train him to be ok overnight down in the cabin with us in the future.

Click to expand...

some questions.

how soon do you see your self boating with this puppy?
how often do you anticipate boating with this puppy or when full grown?
when you are not boating, are you wanting/expecting the dog to only go outside?

how you plan the training for this is actually more important than what the setup for the "toilet" will be.

Finsky said:

Happy help. But don't forget...you will need something underneath the turf as any 'liquid waste' will go through it...hence I mentioned in my previous post 'plant gravel trays'...

Click to expand...

Thanks Finsky,
I was going to use this on top of a little plastic dog toilet, with a plastic grid
eg. Iris Ohyama loo on Amazon (I can't yet post links).
All good advice,
Thanks again.

JacksDad said:

some questions.

how soon do you see your self boating with this puppy?
how often do you anticipate boating with this puppy or when full grown?
when you are not boating, are you wanting/expecting the dog to only go outside?

how you plan the training for this is actually more important than what the setup for the "toilet" will be.

Click to expand...

Hi JacksDad,
Interesting questions:
Probably weekly with the puppy from around Week 16 so we get him well socialised to the boat. Once socialised we will probably spend a few days weekly on the boat Spring to Autumn over the next 2-3 years.
If I can keep working only from home, which is possible, then dog will only go outside, however, I may have to do 2 office days weekly in which case we would use a pen inside and pay a dog walker two days a week.

Any advice on training would be much appreciated as we do not want to confuse the housetraining we plan (short-term crating and hourly toiletting in the day, 3, then 2, then 1 trips out nightly until about 6m old - or least that is the plan )

Thinking laterally - have a word with people who train guide dogs. It used to be that these dogs were only allowed to pee and poo in one place on a giant tray. I don't know if this is still the case, but it would be worth the enquiry, especially if you match it with a donation.