Review
Of Purina Second Nature Dog Litter
I
found out about the Second Nature dog litter made by Purina when I got
my lhasa apso puppies Chester and Roxie. I
had previously raised two other lhasa
apso dogs who spent most of their
lives
living in high-rise condominiums. Instead of having to take them down
an elevator to go outdoors to eliminate all the time, I trained them to
use newspapers in a spare bathroom. Since they were both initially
paper trained as puppies anyway, I chose to continue this indoor apartment dog house training method
for
them. Indoor newspapers worked quite well for the rest of their lives
as my dogs were able to go to the bathroom whenever they needed to.
The
only problem is that the papers tended to get rather messy and smelly.
If plastic liners were not placed underneath the papers, newsprint ink
would be imprinted on the ceramic tiles of my spare bathroom floors. On
some occasions, urine puddles would flow off the papers as well as the
liner resulting in situations which required immediate cleaning since
urine became trapped between the plastic liner and the floor.
Despite
these complications, I was relatively satisfied with the paper method
for my little dogs. After both of my first two dogs had
passed away after long lives, I took a break
as a dog owner for several years. When it was time to become dog owner
again, I had made up my mind to train my new pair of lhasa apso puppies
to use papers indoors as well. This time, it turned out that Purina had
come out with a new litter box system called Second Nature designed for
specifically for dogs.
Purina Second Nature Dog Litter
It was basically
modeled after similar setups
for cats but the dog litter consists of large pellets made up of
recycled newsprint. Purina also introduced a litter box that has one
side cut away lower to facilitate easy entry for dogs. I'm not totally
convinced on the advantage of this particular feature since my lhasa
apsos have no problems stepping into the box from the side. But for
Purina to introduce such a system to the market, I must not have been
the only dog owner who considered indoor elimination a better
alternative to outdoors for smaller breeds. The product is now very
popular especially among small dog owners living in apartments and
high-rise condominiums without easy access to outdoors.
In my mind, the dog litter box system is less messy since all dog urine
and
feces stay inside the box. Actually the Second Nature pellets absorb
urine much better than normal newspapers. The
only complication I observed with the pellets is that both puppies
liked
to chew and eat them at times. Purina claims that ingestion of the
pellets itself is not harmful to the dogs since they are just
compressed papers. This will result in more feces production until the
dogs can stop this habit. The dog litter is non-clumping so it will not
get stuck inside the canine digestive system unlike normal clumping cat
litter. It is considered unsafe to use clumping cat litter as a
substitute for the Purina dog litter. Eventually, both of my dogs grew
out of this habit anyway.
How I Use Second
Nature Dog Litter
Purina Second
Nature was launched only in the United States so as a
Canadian resident, I had to go down to the U.S. to purchase the system.
I started out with Purina's cat and small animal litter called
Yesterday's News which is basically the same as Second Nature except
the pellets are much smaller. But at least the Yesterday's News pellets
are non-clumping and therefore safe to use for dogs.
I
tried other brands of dog litter but never thought any of them were as
good as Second Nature, especially in terms of absorption ability and
odor control. I would definitely recommend the
Purina Second Nature dog litter system to other dog owners.
I just hope that Purina makes the sensible decision to bring
the
product to Canada especially since the dog litter is actually made in
New Brunswick (Canadian province). In the meantime, I'll use
Yesterdays News and buy Second Nature whenever I have a road trip to
the U.S.
For
information on how to actually train your puppy to use a
dog litter box system such as the Purina and others in the market, go
to Potty Training
Dog Information.
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