A common symptom of puppies with kidney disease is frequent urination (polyuria). Sometimes it almost seems like they forgot their potty-training. In Arlo’s case, he was potty-trained (stopped having accidents in the house) for about 2 months before starting to have pee “accidents” again because of his kidney disease. We live in an apartment building and don’t have access to a yard. Whilst keeping a strict potty schedule is helpful, we found it not sustainable as Arlo needed a pee-break about every 3 hours including the middle of the night. It was like having a 16 week old puppy all over again.
Whilst we didn’t have a yard, we decide to designate a small area of our apartment as his pee spot. Similar to teaching a cat to use a litter box, we taught Arlo to pee only in that area in the apartment. Now he has free access to pee (and poop) whenever he wants, and has not had another accident in the house. We still do try to take him outside every 4 hours during the day, but it has been a huge lifesaver to not have to wake up multiple times in the middle of the night.
If you are a dog owner considering designating a small indoor area for your dog to do their business, here are a few products that may be helpful:
Pee Pads
These are large liquid absorbent pads that you can leave out. They are pretty economical ($), but we found that when leaving these out, Arlo liked to chew and play with them. Also, since Arlo pees a lot, we noticed that we had to replace them pretty often (almost after every pee), and he would occasionally miss the pad.
Artificial Grass patch
These are more expensive than a pee pad, but they are re-washable. They may also be slightly easier to train your dog to use than pee pads. We also tried this once, but found that even after deep cleaning, the artificial grass patch smelled strongly of urine.
Real-Grass Patch
There are companies that will mail you a fresh grass patch (like a sod roll) that you can put on a tray indoor. Each grass patch lasts about 2 weeks (though we change it out every week for Arlo since he pees so much). Whilst this is the most expensive option, we’ve found it to be the most convenient for us, whilst also working for Arlo’s situation.
The company we use is Doggie-lawn. We get the XL-size for Arlo, which is rated for dogs 50lb+, even though Aro’s only 28 pounds. We wanted to minimize the chance of Arlo missing the grass patch when peeing. If you do choose Doggie-lawn, we strongly recommend choosing their PVC flex-tray over their regular plastic tray because the plastic tray is prone to cracking/leaking.