bebete Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 Hey All, We are moving to an apartment shortly and i thought it would be a GREAT idea to purchase a Pet Loo....that was until i saw the price of one ! Definately something i can't afford. No matter how hard i tried to justify it i refused to pay $ 310 for a plastic tray. I did place a few bids on ebay used Pet Loos but then i started to think about the product itself....... Apart from it being overpriced i can't see the product really being as good as it all sounds when you take into account that you have a tray of dog urine that has to be emptied daily or every couple of days which is bound to smell and also the fact that it has to travel down through the Pet Loo (coating the Pet Loo itself in urine)......basically what i'm saying is that the Pet Loo has to not only have the grass rinsed when it starts to smell but the pet loo WILL need to be rinsed. There is not really much to absorb the smell as the urine just sits there waiting to be emptied. I have seen alot of other alternatives and ways of making a doggy toilet but in the end i came up with my own solution....that seems to eliminate the problems i listed above. I searched high and low for other options or ways of making something but came up with my OWN. HERE'S WHAT I DID: I went to bunnings and saw a large utilitity type plastic box....the lid is about 2 inches deep. I had to buy the box itself but the lid is IDEAL as it's about 55cm x 40cm and not too high either. That was $ 20.00. I filled the lid up with a good kitty litter. That was $ 5.00 I purchased half a metre of Bunnings own brand of artificial grass (the medium length type). This is enough to cut out about 4 replacement mats of grass as it is about 2 1/5 metres wide...Pet Loo replacement grass sells for $ 75 each may i add. I cut a piece to the same size of the lid (which becomes my tray) using dress makers chalk to outline it (as pens don't draw to well on the black grass). This was $ 40 metre so this cost me $ 20.00. Using a large philips head screwdriver i placed the artificial grass upside down on the lawn and stabbed quite a few holes to allow for drainage. Placed this over the top and perfect. My dog started using it straight away !!!! Each to their own but i found this ALOT better than having a Pet Loo because the kitty litter is designed to absorb the smell (and it does...especially with the new odour neutralising ones) and there is virtually NOTHING to wash apart from giving the grass that sits on top a rinse every once in a while. All i need to do is replace the kitty litter when it's done it's job and that only costs me about $ 5.... All up this cost me $ 45.00 to make........and about 20 minutes of my time. And Saved alot of money too. Hope this helps some of you guys who can't fork out $ 310 (or more) for a piece of plastic and then further money for replacement grass......some of us are on average wages you know ; ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odette Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 I'm going to give this a try, i need to get a pet loo (she uses toilet training mats when inside at the moment, and has an aversion to going to the toilet outside when its wet.. Bit of a problem with winter coming around!), and if i can save a couple of hundred bucks, its worth giving it a go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cockerlover Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 good thinkin 99 maybe u should patent it lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pug Hugger Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 great idea and good instructions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bebete Posted March 3, 2008 Author Share Posted March 3, 2008 Thank you.......i spent MONTHS on ebay bidding on "used" pet loos and i thought NO WAY there has to be a better option.....my pup (well she is 8 years this year) loves her new little tray. Goes to show you can teach an old dog new tricks ; ) I'm now going to make another one for out on the balcony so i don't have to keep moving them around..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gomez the Norfolk Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 (edited) It's great you made your own indoor pet loo - but you may want to think about training your dog to toilet outside... Just because you live in an apartment does not mean your dogg has to pee inside - Gomez has lived in an apartment all his life and he was trained to go outside from the get-go. He gets 3-4 walks a day and he does his toiletting then. We lived in London when he was a puppy, and it was February, so very cold and rainy, and we lived in one of the busiest streets in the UK, think Bourke Street or George Street (x100 !) The amount of times we took that elevator up and down.... It can be done, if we had let him get away with not wanting to pee while it was raining/snowing/windy/sunny/storming/buses going by, we would have had a big problem! I would not want his pee all over a wall or the sides of a petloo, cats squat, dogs cock their legs and have very bad aim!! eta - think of what you will have to cleanup if your doggie ever gets the runs and uses the indoor contraption... Edited March 3, 2008 by Gomez the Norfolk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trishalouise Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 Thank you for posting that - great info. Our puppy uses her doggy door when we are home but is confined to her puppy pen when we are out - and uses plastic pad things. We tried a real piece of turf in a kitty litter tray but she just ripped that apart! She is now starting to chew the plastic so am going to give yours a go. Trish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog_Horse_Girl Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 Could you please post some pics? Would love to see the finished product... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bebete Posted March 3, 2008 Author Share Posted March 3, 2008 thanks for that...yes she does actually get taken outside in the morning and also at night before we go to bed....this is (same reason as people would have the Pet Loo) something that gets used throughout the day when i'm at work LOL......we will be moving to a 5th floor apartment but of course she will be going for the usual walks etc.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bebete Posted March 3, 2008 Author Share Posted March 3, 2008 Could you please post some pics? Would love to see the finished product... Here's a pic....one full bag of kitty litter fills it up perfectly so that the grass sits right on top and there's no ledge for them to step into..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Fox 001 Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 Could you please post some pics? Would love to see the finished product... Here's a pic....one full bag of kitty litter fills it up perfectly so that the grass sits right on top and there's no ledge for them to step into..... That looks great bebete - very professional. I don't want to hijack you thread but was just wondering for those living in multi storey apartments with puppy training how do you get down the stairs or lift before pup does the business? I am reading that once pup wakes up say you have to run them outside to their toilet spot - how can you do this when you are dealing with stairs or a lift? Hope you don't mind bebete it doesn't really warrant a new thread I was just curious as a couple mentioned it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gomez the Norfolk Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 We used the "carry" method :wink: Whenever it was time to go downstairs we picked him up and took the lift down, he never once peed on us! Of course, Gomez is a small dog, and he weighed all of 2-3 kgs at the time Crate training is especially useful in apartments Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mita Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 Bebete, that's brilliant! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bebete Posted March 3, 2008 Author Share Posted March 3, 2008 Could you please post some pics? Would love to see the finished product... Here's a pic....one full bag of kitty litter fills it up perfectly so that the grass sits right on top and there's no ledge for them to step into..... That looks great bebete - very professional. I don't want to hijack you thread but was just wondering for those living in multi storey apartments with puppy training how do you get down the stairs or lift before pup does the business? I am reading that once pup wakes up say you have to run them outside to their toilet spot - how can you do this when you are dealing with stairs or a lift? Hope you don't mind bebete it doesn't really warrant a new thread I was just curious as a couple mentioned it. I think for me it is just Bebete (who is my Mini Poodle) getting used to having her food served at the same time every day. That way she needs to go around the same time each day. I wake up in the morning (she sleeps in my room) and take her straight outside first thing and tell her to "go to the toilies....lol".....she pretty much goes straight away. At 9.30 just before i head off to bed i take her out too. She is so used to this time now and same thing i just take her out and tell her to go and point to the ground with the same command. Now that i'm moving to the apartment i have one of my trays out in the backyard to train her before we mvoe and i tell her the same thing pointing to the tray and she gets on and goes.......a couple of times she jumped off and sniffed around the garden but i just lifted her up and put her on and said my command and she got the idea. Of course i'm going to take her outside whenever i can (but i kind of have to be home to do that) LOL. The tray is for her to use when i'm NOT at home or if it's raining or something like that. I'm loving how someone responded to my post basically saying i'm holding a dog hostage in my apartment and she'll never see the light of day. I have taken Bebete away on holidays before and as long as i take her out first thing in the morning and 9.30pm....she's fine throughout the night. It's just throughout the day that she'll be using the tray. MY DOG....(and my flatmates) were absolute nightmares to toilet train as pups......we used to live in a very unsafe area near Redfern in a dodgy street and our gate had to be locked during the day and they had to stay inside......as pups we used wee pads TAPED to the floor so that they weren't shredded which worked quite well.....kitty litter on it's own just got dug out as they seemed to fine that fun.....no signs of digging now though.....it's day 4 today and all is perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trishalouise Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 It worked!!!! Following your excellent instructions I made one of these last night. Today was Noodle's longest stint in her puppy pen - 7 hours - as I had to work. Previously we had been using mats that were getting moved and played with, and therefore puddles were appearing where they shouldn't. So, tonight my husband gets home expecting fake grass and kitty litter to be everywhere!! He was surprised to find not only was the whole thing still intact, but there were no puddles on the ground!!! Woohoo. Thanks again for posting!! Trish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Fox 001 Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 (edited) Thanks bebete and Gomez for your replies. We will have only one flight of stairs so that sounds very doable I was thinking about the balcony but didn't really want to start where we weren't going to finish as we would prefer he use grass. We have 46 acres so it seems a little silly to use a 6 x 3m balcony Edit - typos, to early for me LOL Edited March 4, 2008 by Blue Fox 001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bebete Posted March 12, 2008 Author Share Posted March 12, 2008 Just thought i'd mention..............IF your pup does attempt to dig around and try to get the kitty litter out....like a friend of mine's did....this is what i suggested: Start out with just the tray and the grass Instead of kitty litter get the clear crystal type kitty litter...it's not clay so will not tempt your dog so much (not being soil etc.) After a week or so of just the grass add the kitty litter bit by bit....your pup will soon get used to not digging and all will be fine. This worked for my friends pup. Just thought i would mention this in case people do have problems......not that i have YET : ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog_Horse_Girl Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 Thanks for posting the pic, as it makes more sense in picture form than words...will have a bash at making one for Molly who just can't "hold it" all day. She is trained to "go" on old towels after we had a few attempts at using a litter tray which failed miserably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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