We recently got a new puppy at our house. He’s a toy poodle and my daughter named him Biskit. Here’s a picture of “the dynamic duo!”

Well, if you’ve ever had a dog before, especially one that is male, you know some of the challenges that come with house training.

A few weeks ago, we took Biskit to the vet and shared how house training has been a little difficult. It’s not very relaxing when he’s running around inside the house and you’re constantly having to watch him, to make sure he doesn’t hike his leg to pee on the furniture.

During the course of our conversation, she highly recommended we buy Biskit a belly band. This was something I had never heard about before. I asked several more questions and made a decision to come home and google belly bands.

Here is the website I found: http://www.bellybands.net/ (This is a pretty easy website address to remember!) I immediately placed an order for two of them and waited.

Finally, they arrived last week. Grace and I were thrilled because now we felt like Mr. Biskit could enjoy much more freedom than he had been able to have up until now. We have been crate training him and he has done very well; however, we wanted him to be able to be out of his crate and enjoy being with family more than he currently was able to do.

Grace read the instructions and we discovered you use a feminine-type of protective pad inside the band to absorb any leakage of urine if Biskit tried to “mark his territory” and pee in the house. (Biskit hasn’t figured out yet that the inside of the house is all my territory!) Luckily, we happened to have a few pads in the bathroom closet.

After cutting one up into three sections, Grace placed one piece into the belly band. The inside of the band is like a fuzzy type of material, so the adhesive on the back of the pad stuck well. Placing the band around Biskit’s belly, making sure the band covered the essential part of his anatomy, we were ready to let him enjoy some newfound freedom.

The band has worked beautifully! He has tried to get it off a few times with his teeth. He did manage to pull it off once and proceeded to chew up the maxi pad. No harm done, but it did create a slight mess. However, since then, it has been fairly uneventful.

Grace’s job is to remember to put the band on him whenever he is out of his crate, and to remember to take it off when he goes back in. Since then, he hasn’t chewed up any pads!

While it is still necessary to make sure Biskit gets taken outside several times a day in the continuing process of house training, this mom is at least calmer now whenever he is busy playing inside the house.