# Wood pellets



## Tom King

I Just typed a fairly long response to a PM and thought that some others might like to read it too:

copied and pasted leaving out name of PM'er

Purina litter is getting close to 20 dollars for a 20 pound bag when you can find it. Heater wood pellets are 6 dollars for a 40 lb bag. You can have a ton delivered to your house for 5 bucks a bag, but only a breeder would use that much and still over years.

Purina litter or Petco litter is made from recycled newspaper and has other stuff added to it. The purina litter has some sort of sharp perfume added to it that I really dislike. Petco litter has baking soda added.

Urine runs to the bottom of the dog litter and forms a mush that develops ammonia if you let it sit for a day or so. Heater wood pellets are just dried and compressed sawdust. Urine turns it back into sawdust where the liquid hits it, drys out really quickly, and I don't know how long you would have to let it sit to develop a smell. Since it turns to sawdust, it's easy to see what needs to be taken out without disposing of a bunch of the good pellets by simply brushing aside the good pelllets and scooping out the sawdust. A small solid bottom dust pan is best for this. Dollar General sells a little dust pan with snap in brush that works just right.

The smooth grained hardwood pellets never have much of a smell. If we can't find hardwood pellets that we like locally available, we'll use Equine Pine in a pinch. The pine does have some pine smell, but it's not bad. The Equine Pine pellets are made just like the heater wood pellets, but specifically for use as horse stall bedding and always available in feed stores and stores like Tractor Supply. The heater wood pellets are readily available during heating season, but we make sure our local Tractor Supply keeps a pallet in the back for us during warm weather.

With the low sided Purina litter boxes and several puppies playing, some litter does get scattered around. With the large size that has high sides and one or two puppies it's not much of an issue.

Another problem with the Purina boxes is that the lowered entry is very inviting for a male puppy to only put his front feet in and pee outside the box. If this happens and you are using the medium size box, if you turn it around, the boy can still easily get in, but it's no longer comfortable for front feet in only.

I'm currently working with the Heater Wood Pellet industry to get a list of suppliers who produce only smooth grained hardwood pellets from woods like Aspen, Maple, Poplar, Sweet Gum, and such. We like those the best. Oak has a smell from the tanins and breaks down too easily just from the pups walking on it.

These days, any sawmill of any size has a pellet mill since they can get a couple hundred bucks a ton for the processed sawdust that is otherwise mostly just wasted. They do have a National organization.

Lab rats kept on pine and cedar shavings were found to have higher than normal levels of liver enzymes. Where this is a concern, they have switched to heater wood pellets. There is a study with lab rats and heater wood pellets that shows no raised liver enzyme levels, but the rats chew on their bedding to make a bed and puppies don't chew on the wood pellets. We have had some, and know of more, who would chew on the Purina litter. I think maybe it felt more like a bone to their teeth. If a wood pellet is broken, it breaks down into sawdust. I don't think anything likes sawdust in their mouth.

We start our puppies on it when they are three weeks old and they do not have any problem walking on it. Back when we used the Purina litter, we used the cat version sold in grocery stores (can't remember the name-something like Yesterday's News) as the first step since those extruded pellets were smaller and easier for the tiny feet to walk on. The wood pellets do not have as slick a surface as the Purina litter does.

We are going public with our whole system pretty soon. It's mostly now just in my head. We took an 11 week old puppy with us to the beach over a long weekend. He had the run of the room with one litter box the whole weekend and never had an accident. Typically, we will have a whole litter in our 584 sq. ft. living room loose during play time and they always go to a litter box. We get them in the habit of holding it starting at 3 weeks and progress as they age. Our system is not dependent on the wood pellets, but they simplify it for us.

We recently had one of our rare 2 litters at the same time. With 8 puppies, I wouldn't want to do fake grass or piddle pads.

We have an 11 week old and a 12 week old here now that haven't been picked up yet. We were baby sittiong for an adult who uses a piddle pad. The 12 week old walked over on the new piddle pad, smelled it, and peed on it. They both go outside in the grass. I don't think either one has had an accident. They take daytime naps in a 4x10 foot expen and are out during play time. They both sleep in crates in our bedroom, and go potty on command. We believe all puppies should be raised like this. The number one reason small dogs are surrendered to shelters is for housetraining problems.

Hope that answered some of your questions,


Hi Tom,
While waiting for the right pup to come into our family, I am researching litter boxes as an alternative to fake grass and UGO systems.
Can you tell me why you prefer the wood pellets to dog litter?
Is it easy for the dog to walk onto the pellets? Does it make a scattered mess around the home or a distinct smell?


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## mintchip

Thanks Tom
Oliver has always used a litter box with the heater wood pellets. The Vet told us about it and also warned not to use any type of "clumping cat litter"
Do you recommend the Purina boxes or another brand for your older dogs?


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## Tom King

We use the large size Purina boxes with the high sides for the adults. I have ideas for improvements in the design to eliminate the front feet in only problem. I make the ones we use for the small puppies from Sterilite boxes cut down with a red hot utility knife blade with the entry at the right height.


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## Julie

Tom--You may want to remove the username of the person who pm'd you. I can see it at the bottom of your post currently.....eace:


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## krandall

Tom King said:


> We use the large size Purina boxes with the high sides for the adults. I have ideas for improvements in the design to eliminate the front feet in only problem. I make the ones we use for the small puppies from Sterilite boxes cut down with a red hot utility knife blade with the entry at the right height.


Another hint that either you or Pam gave me when Kodi tried the front-feet-only thing as a puppy was to move the litter to the back of the litter box so he had to go in further to hit it. I did that for a couple of weeks and he's never missed again.


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## Sheri

You know, I was just thinking last night (huge windstorm/rain blowing sideways,) does the littler box idea work if your dog lifts his leg to potty? I'm thinking the spray might not be contained very well in a box and might go over the edge...? 

Sometimes I think about trying to train Tucker to this, but figure he's probably too old. It would be good for a next puppy, though. But, what about the leg lift?


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## Tom King

The large size Purina box has pretty high sides and are high enough for our boys. I make the ones we start the puppies with from Sterilite boxes I get from Walmart, so if the sides of the large ones are not high enough you could make one with higher sides.


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## Tom King

Julie said:


> Tom--You may want to remove the username of the person who pm'd you. I can see it at the bottom of your post currently.....eace:


Done. Thanks for that, I didn't notice that the username got copied.


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## Tom King

krandall said:


> Another hint that either you or Pam gave me when Kodi tried the front-feet-only thing as a puppy was to move the litter to the back of the litter box so he had to go in further to hit it. I did that for a couple of weeks and he's never missed again.


Since then, we had another boy who would do that while all his littermates were still here. It was always when he just woke up from a nap. What I did for him, since the litter would have been scattered back out across the box by the others, was to just turn the box around so they either had to jump or crawl over. That did the trick I think even better than just pushing the litter to the back of the box. That was a medium sized box. With the large box, pushing the litter back is probably still the best first try.

I can very easily improve on the box designs. Front feet in looks like it's just caused by having a too comfortable entry height.

I guess it's sort of a boy thing anyway that close is good enough.


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## krandall

Tom King said:


> Since then, we had another boy who would do that while all his littermates were still here. It was always when he just woke up from a nap. What I did for him, since the litter would have been scattered back out across the box by the others, was to just turn the box around so they either had to jump or crawl over. That did the trick I think even better than just pushing the litter to the back of the box. That was a medium sized box. With the large box, pushing the litter back is probably still the best first try.


Yeah, Kodi was already big enough at the time that he easily went in the sides of the largest commercial box. (plus, I only had one to deal with!) Besides his size, he needed the bigger box pretty early because, in order to be "able" to poop in the box, he needed to get his whole, circling "potty dance" inside the box. When he couldn't fit his circle in, he "couldn't" poop in it either.



Tom King said:


> I guess it's sort of a boy thing anyway that close is good enough.


Don't remind me. At least I doubt the puppies (as opposed to human boys) try to have "sword fights" while both using the toilet at the same time. That only happened ONCE in this house.ound:


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## TrishK

This is really good information Tom. Now I'm starting to wonder if I mightn't try training Sammy to go in a litter box, especially as I'm looking out the window at the very wet snow coming down. hmmmm...such a dilemma. Is it possible for them to know how to go both in a little box when inside and also go outside when there. It would seem weird for the dog to stop playing outside and come in to pee.


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## Tom King

It does not confuse them. We kept a puppy from the last litter a couple of extra weeks. He went in a box when inside, preferred to go outside first thing in the morning, and peed on a pad that was here for a dog we were babysitting for who was trained to a pad.

It's just another option and one I wouldn't want to be without. People who have the most accidents are the ones who don't want them to go inside at all, and don't provide an option.

We use the boxes primarily for training the little ones. Ours have a dog door once they get big enough to use it. We will carry a litter box if we are staying in a hotel, just so we don't have to go out every time the dog wants to.


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## TrishK

do they poop in the litter boxes too or just piddle?


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## Tom King

Both.


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## nycali

How often is the wood pellet litter box cleaned of the peed-on pellets (my guess is the poo is immediate)? Is the sawdust the only thing that gets cleaned out, or the whole tray of sawdust and pellets? When do you start noticing a smell--as in how many litter box visits before it gets too smelly? I'm trying to figure out how often to clean the tray out (of just dirty pellets, or entire tray) as I want to avoid any hint of smell.


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