Granted, I dont have a Shiba yet, but as I'm planning, a couple of questions have come to mind.
I live in a two story apartment, with my room being upstairs where I plan to have the dog sleep/play/hang out until I'm confident in his ability to run the house. Seeing as I have a balcony, and getting him downstairs and outside in case of a potty emergency would involve a probably unsafe dead sprint, would it be a good idea to have puppy pads on the balcony at first to make my reaction time quicker to help correct his accident? It wouldn't be a place I want him to permanently use as a toilet though, so I'm afraid he'll always associate that place with housebreaking.
One more quick question. I read all these great things about the benefits of crate training, and I plan on seeing if the puppy takes to it. If I do end up going through every crate training nightmare of Shiba screams and whining, would it be acceptable or almost equal to just use an exercise pen or just being in the room with the door shut? There won't be too many times the dog is unsupervised, so I'm hoping in the off chance crate training does turn out to be a nightmare, giving him some open space would be a remedy. I feel like it's a sin on here to not crate train :)
James
I live in a two story apartment, with my room being upstairs where I plan to have the dog sleep/play/hang out until I'm confident in his ability to run the house. Seeing as I have a balcony, and getting him downstairs and outside in case of a potty emergency would involve a probably unsafe dead sprint, would it be a good idea to have puppy pads on the balcony at first to make my reaction time quicker to help correct his accident? It wouldn't be a place I want him to permanently use as a toilet though, so I'm afraid he'll always associate that place with housebreaking.
One more quick question. I read all these great things about the benefits of crate training, and I plan on seeing if the puppy takes to it. If I do end up going through every crate training nightmare of Shiba screams and whining, would it be acceptable or almost equal to just use an exercise pen or just being in the room with the door shut? There won't be too many times the dog is unsupervised, so I'm hoping in the off chance crate training does turn out to be a nightmare, giving him some open space would be a remedy. I feel like it's a sin on here to not crate train :)
James