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There are many things a breeder can do to make the transition from breeder to purchaser as easy as possible. Besides starting socialization and the beginning of crate training, the one single thing a breeder can do that the new owner will be forever grateful for is starting the housebreaking process.

Anyone who has observed a litter knows, once the puppies start moving around at about two-to-three weeks they try to get away from their bed or nest area to urinate and defecate. Everyone who has raised a litter of Dane puppies can tell you how messy they can be and how hard it is to keep on top of keeping them clean—especially when they start solid food and if it’s a big litter. And we all know puppies raised in dirty surroundings will be harder to housebreak later on because dirty was the “norm” for them and they are used to living in filth. But yet, the puppies are too young to go outside, especially if the breeder lives in colder climates or it’s during wintertime.

There are a variety of materials breeders might use in their whelping box for young puppies. Newspapers are commonly used, but they don’t absorb moisture well, are messy to dispose of and stinky, and frequently become a mass of confetti when the puppies decide to become paper shredders. Others use some type of fabric material such as a sheet or pads, but these also have their drawbacks, as puppies imprint on the type of material they have access to eliminate on. So in essence, using material such as sheets, fake turf, carpet, or other household type material, teaches the puppy it’s okay to use that type of article for a potty area. Shavings are simply messy, and if you have your whelping box in your house, you also will have shavings everywhere. Potty pads don’t work well for Danes, as they simply become something to drag around and shred, plus puppies raised on potty pads vs. a litter box seem to have a harder time making the transition to outside.

Dane puppies can learn amazing fast at a very young age if the breeder is willing to take the extra time and effort to teach them the appropriate elimination area. And by doing that, the housebreaking process is speeded up making the transition from litter into home so much easier for everyone.

Remembering that puppies will try to keep their bed area clean, and they will form a substrate preference on what they eliminate on, the breeder can make great inroads with the housebreaking process as young as three and four weeks of age. Instead of using more traditional materials for the potty area, a puppy litter box is used.

The materials used to make your litter box are pretty simple; some sort of leak-proof plastic container large enough for your needs and litter material. The plastic container can be a tub cut down short enough for the puppies to be able to navigate, or even a plastic swimming pool. Another option that works quite well for very young Dane puppies is using a metal or hard plastic crate pan from one of the larger crates. To make sure the pan is waterproof, apply silicone prior to use. You must keep weight in mind, too, because once you add the litter material, and it becomes wet, it will be very heavy if your container is too large. You can place two tubs together, but you do risk puppies managing to urinate at the join of the tubs, making a mess. As puppies become older, using a container with a higher edge is suggested as they will toss the litter all about when playing. We’ve simply made a barrier with 2” x 4”, with the front end shorter for easy access.

The type of material used is paper-based pellets and are safe should the puppies decide to sample it. Yesterday’s News (available through Chewy.comor PetsSmart/Petco) is one brand we use. DO NOT use wood or clay-based pellets. Puppies ingesting wood or clay pellets can become sick. If a litterbox is added early on, the tendency to eat the pellets is dramatically diminished.

Initially, when the puppies are very young (two-to-three weeks) your litter box needs to cover almost the entire area of your whelping box, with just enough room for mom to be able to get in and lay down. Whenever the puppies are removed from the dam or awaken, they are placed in the litter box to eliminate. You can take it one step further by using a potty command and verbally praising the puppy when he eliminates.

At first, the puppies may miss the litter box causing urine to run under it. Putting several layers of newspaper or an old towel under it will help soak up urine caused by “misses”, but the area under the pan should be cleaned and disinfected at least every other day, until the puppies have gotten the hang of actually going into the litter box.

In order to encourage clean puppies, feces should be as it occurs or at least removed several times a day and urine-soaked litter should be replaced as needed. With a large and/or giant-breed litter, changing should be at least every other day. Daily, we remove the excessively wet areas and refresh with new litter. When it’s time to change the litter material it can easily be removed with a poop scoop or small flat-edged shoverl and deposited into a bucket or other receptacle for disposal and the pan cleaned and disinfected. Since the litter is paper based it is biodegradable.

As the puppies become older and more mobile, the size of the litter box is decreased, giving the puppies more play room. As the puppies become older and can venture outside, a pan of the litter is placed in their outside exercise area and they will gravitate to it. Eventually, a bit of the litter is spread on the ground in the outside potty area, and the puppy soon learns to eliminate outside.

When the puppy is ready to go home, a plastic zip lock bag of a bit of used litter is provided and the owner can use that to encourage his new puppy to eliminate outside in the area of his choosing.

With the breeder starting the housebreaking process, and the owner following instruction on proper toilet training combined with crate training, the puppy will learn to be clean in an amazingly short amount of time!

Thank you to Ray Goldstone and Joanne Kinney for their help with this article. Thank you to Ray Goldstone for the pictures.

By Georgia Hymmen

How to Survive the First 24 Hours with Your New Puppy
By Elizabeth Geier

Breeding

SHOW DOGS AND STUD DOGS

By Richard G. (Rick) Beauchamp

A stud dog is not simply a male dog. Neither do show records or championships have anything to do with a dog’s producing ability. Winning in the show ring proves the dog has the quality necessary to win. Siring outstanding offspring is the only thing that proves a sire’s ability. These are two entirely different qualities.

A dog can be a truly great show dog and a poor sire. A dog can hate the show ring and never win a point and be an outstanding sire. It is just as simple as that.
The biggest mistake breeders, novice or veteran, can make is to confuse their show dogs with their breeding dogs. They can be the same. We hope they will be the same. Often they are not

There are those who say show wins are the indicator of a dog’s value to the breed. In other words, if many judges agree a particular dog is the current ideal in its breed, the dog should be bred to. I agree - but only to a degree.

You can get every judge in the country to agree that the dog of the hour is the dog of the hour, but that same dog can be a complete disappointment in the breeding department. If a dog’s quality is not realized in the whelping box, all we have is a box full of ribbons and nothing more.

This is not to say a winning dog cannot also be an outstanding producer. Records prove otherwise. But I cannot stress strongly enough that it is the producing ability that must be looked to and not the show record!

Even the outstanding sire can be misused. Most breeds have had those truly wonderful show dogs who develop records that become the envy of one and all. Unfortunately, they become the envy of too many who feel if a dog is good enough to win every award in sight, it must be good enough to breed every bitch in sight.

In a way, the popular stud dog that produces well only with certain bitch lines can be very destructive to a breed. A few excellent youngsters emerge from the right combination and the parade begins. Every bitch that can see lightning and hear thunder is bred to the dog, but the percentage of quality produced is minuscule. The breed takes a big step backward.

This is actually not the fault of the sire, but of the owners of the many bitches who follow the parade to the popular sire, regardless of the fact that he would in fact be the last choice for their particular bitch.

Truly great sires are really few and far between. There’s an old saying I heard somewhere along the way that goes something like, “You can breed that one to a fence post and you’ll still get good pups.” They are the rare ones, the ones that any breed is lucky to have, but it is highly doubtful that any breed will have such a dog any more than once in any breeder’s lifetime.

This no doubt all sounds perfectly logical, but I could write whole books on the excuses young breeders make for not breeding to the correct dog for their bitch: snow storms, rain storms, typhoons and earthquakes; the correct dog’s third cousin lives down the street; it’s just her first season and I’m “proving” her; etc., etc., etc.

There is only one breeding worth making - the right one. When it comes time to breed your quality bitch, stop and think, what if this turns out to be the only litter she will ever have!”

By Richard G. (Rick) Beauchamp