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There’s a lot to be said for apartment living. There’s no giant yard to mow. No ‘garden of good intentions and poor execution‘ to wrangle. No maintenance. Little upkeep. I could get used to this!  We don’t love everything though. It’s been a huge adjustment for me and for the dogs. Learning to be a bit quieter, not to bark as much and most importantly, that the people in the hallways aren’t trying to kill us, do you hear me Felix? One of the biggest adjustments has been getting Kolchak and Felix on a solid potty schedule. I’m starting to feel like Sheldon when he interviewed Leonard as his roommate.

When we lived in the house, I just opened the back door any time a dog had the urge to go. It’s a bit more of a production when you live in an apartment. Leashes, collars, harnesses, pick up bags. You need so much stuff! Then we trek down four stories and head out. It’s an ordeal and while I love my dogs and obviously don’t want them to have any accidents, I also don’t want to be traipsing in and out every 10 minutes all day. Not to mention, every now and again, Kolchak or Felix has a sudden urge to pee super late at night. Casa de Kolchak isn’t exactly in the ghetto, but it’s not the safest either. There are far too many middle class spoiled kids around here who think they be thugz. I feel like a wimpy girl and two small dogs aren’t much of a match for things that go bump in the night. The idea of late potty breaks kind of freaked me out a little.

You guys know me, I don’t enter into anything lightly, so I carefully researched my options before I chose a dog potty. Pee pads were disposable, but they felt really wasteful and not very Earth friendly, plus I had a sneaking suspicion Felix would chew them. A friend offered to make me a flat planter to grow real grass, but I didn’t want to deal with keeping it alive and clean. I have a brown thumb and just how do you clean real grass?! I started to look at faux grass patches. I looked at a lot of units trying to pick the perfect one. Some were way too big and others ridiculously small. Some of them seemed really hard to keep clean and almost all of them seemed near impossible to empty. I hated the idea of kitty litter ones, since we tend to get a lot of rain here and there’s a good chance our potty will get soaked often. There were lots that had an open bowl to collect urine, but the idea of carrying a bowl of dog pee across the beige carpet in my living room to empty it in the bathroom gave me heart palpitations. I was super excited when I found the perfect one for me. (Bummer for you guys? They’ve since stopped making them.)

I knew a deck potty was the right solution, but the dogs? They needed more convincing.

I had almost given up hope when I realized what the solution was. (I swear, it was so sudden that had you been with me, you would have seen the light bulb go on over my head.) My dogs don’t pee in open fields. They don’t squat. They don’t pee into nowhere. My dog’s pee on things. Trees, bushes, patches of weeds and areas of tall grass. Could it be that maybe my dogs didn’t want to use  our dog deck potty because they didn’t have anything to go on?! I headed to the local garden centre to get a couple potted plants to put behind the potty. My goal was to get plants would hang over the potty, so I could ensure the dogs were peeing into a spot that would drain into the reservoir and not onto the porch. This is what I got:

As soon as I positioned the plant pots and sprayed them with a bit of those sprays designed to encourage good potty habits {insert link}, Kolchak walked over and peed on them. Not to be outdone, Felix went and peed over his spot. Eureka! We had success.

I won’t pretend that teaching my dogs to use a deck dog potty was easy. It took a lot of patience and dedication on my part. I took them out there every time they wanted to go out, gave our potty command and waited. The first time, Felix laid on it like I had brought him a new grass bed! Kolchak would jump up, sit on it, then look at me like “where’s my treat?”. Some days, I wanted to scream, but like any training, be it good leash skills, cute tricks or not to chew things, great behaviours come from hard work. You can’t just expect your dog to “get it” right off.

I can honestly say that a deck dog potty fixed a huge challenge for us.

Thanks to this little patch of faux grass, I can feel safe knowing I don’t have to venture out at all hours and that if my dogs gotta go, they can. It’s a small price to pay for that kind of peace of mind. I’ve already recommend it to a couple single ladies and an elderly couple in my building. Safety first you guys! It would also be great if you (or your dog) was recovering from an injury (like a torn ACL, Felix) where you weren’t allowed to walk much or if you had an illness that kept you close to home.

It’s not a replacement for a good walk. All dogs still deserve to get out and smell the neighbourhood, but it’s a great choice for when that walk just isn’t an option.

Have you ever tried an indoor or a deck potty? Do you think one would be useful for your life?

Kol’s Note: Urban Potty provided us with one of their potty units in exchange for sharing our experience and our honest opinions. As always, our commitment to you is that we will only endorse products we love and believe in. All opinions expressed are our own.