After 2 Months with the Porch Potty

So following up the design and construction of the Porch Potty for Kira, here is how it worked for us.

Good stuff!

1. Kira now uses the Porch Potty on her own. It only took about 2 weeks before she understood that that was her home potty, and that the green stuff downstairs was ok to pee in too. Now we have no more issues with her bathroom needs. 
2. We added a dog door insert for a sliding glass door so that she could go out there without us. 
• A bunch of cheese, treats, and throwing her precious dog toys outside, or putting her outside and walking away while calling to her eventually got her to push her way through without problem. Don't give up on this training. 
• This was safe for us since the walls of our patio are solid and there's only a tiny gap underneath that she can't possibly fit through. If you're in an apartment where its safe, i highly recommend these. We got ours second hand from craigslist for 70$ as opposed to the 150+ or retail. 
• We had to remove the heavy plastic flap for something more lightweight. It wasn't as air tight, but now she has no fear of the clank the other one was making. 
3. The cleanup has been a breeze with the latest set up. 

The Refining Process (things we changed):

1. I had forgotten to go buy the kitty litter in my initial design when we set this up. So instead, we put pee pads underneath the tray for the sod to drip the pee onto. This worked pretty well until it rained...more on that later.
2. We started with Sod from my parents back yard. Unfortunately Kira decided that this was a tasty treat and proceeded to try to eat the sod. 
3. We then switched to a commercial sod that was low cut and not as easy for her to pull up. While she didn't eat this as much, it was comprised of a clay like dirt that held onto the water (pee) very well and quickly developed a stench.
4. So then we got some second hand Astroturf. and cut it so it fit inside of the tray. Yes, it drained just fine.
• I cut the astro turf so i could tuck a little edge underneath, then used a heavy duty staple gun to secure the turf to the plastic tray. Make sure you get all the stray threads/corners clipped or tucked under. 
• This was around the time that Kira figured out how to escape her pen and we tried leaving her alone during the day. Let's just say....the first several rounds of astroturf....didn't fare to well against a bored puppy. 
• So we stopped leaving her out and now we've had the same astroturf in place for over a month. 
5. Back to the pee pads. It's pretty easy to tell when the pee pads need to be changed. They started to smell through the astroturf. And also, living in the great northwest means rainstorms hold more water than puppy pads can hold. From experience i can tell you it's not fun lifting up the tray to find an inch of pee infused water. 
6. So we finally got some odor control kitty litter and put that on top of some pee pads under the tray (kitty littler is dangerous for dogs to eat so make sure you have a barrier between the two). Now we just scoop out the clumps every few days and add a little more kitty litter when it's getting low. Really i think this was the best solution after all. Can't believe it took me over a month to go get some silly kitty litter! 

The final "perfect" solution: From top down. 

Astroturf, secured to tray with heavy duty staples along the edges. 

plastic soda tray

Kitty litter

pee pads/plastic 

wooden tray frame

Maintenance Routine:

Every couple of days we scoop out the clumps and flush them. Adding more kitty litter if needed. 

Once a week, I take the tray with the attached astroturf into the shower and run water on it for a few minutes to clean it off.  

Next month, i plan to spray it with some detergent to give it a good cleaning. Should last a long time.