I do not believe in putting dogs on wire, ever. Not even puppies, in fact ESPECIALLY not puppies, for very specific reasons. The fiirst couple weeks of life puppies are deaf, blind and unable to walk, their life depending on a warm, draft free, clean, dry environment with full access to their dam. Once eyes open and they begin to take their first steps it is extremely important that they have a solid surface on which to learn to walk. Sanitation is NOT an issue because the dam cleans up all waste until the pups begin to eat solid food at around 4 weeks. Once the puppies start to eat and the dam no longer cleans up after them, they INSTINCTIVELY look for a place to relieve themselves away from their living area. If allowed free access to an exercise area they will go to it, just as an adult will. To put them on wire is not only unsafe for their physical developement, it also teaches them that they can soil their environment at will, NOT a good lesson for a dog that will hopefully get a chance to be a family pet one day. Puppies raised on wire, or forced to live in filth, are always difficult to housebreak because those lessons they’ve learned in that first couple of months will set the patterns of a lifetime. Puppies that learn to keep their environment clean grow up to be clean dogs, puppies raised without benefit of that training often have lifelong housetraining issues.

Breeders that say puppies must be on wire because of sanitation issues are not being honest. What they are is lazy and/or greedy. If they have so many dogs and puppies that they cannot manage to keep them clean on solid surfaces, they need to have fewer dogs or get out of the business altogether.