Dog Potty Trays in India
Three kinds are sold here. One difference between them decides how much of your weekend this costs.
Almost every dog potty tray on an Indian marketplace is a plastic tray with a mesh grid, priced somewhere between ₹699 and ₹1,715 when we looked in August 2026. They are inexpensive, widely stocked, and they all work the same way: liquid passes through the grid and collects in the base until you empty and wash it.
That last clause is the whole decision. Every tray sold here is either something you wash or something you replace, and the buying price tells you almost nothing about which you are signing up for.
The three types
Mesh grid tray
A plastic tray with a raised grid on top. Urine falls through the grid into the base below, keeping paws off the wet.
Upkeep: You wash it. The grid, the base and the corners, by hand, at a frequency that depends on the dog.
In its favour: Cheap to buy and nothing further to purchase. Nothing gets thrown away. Easy to find, since this is most of what Indian marketplaces stock.
Against it: The base is an open pool of urine until you empty it, and that is where the smell comes from. Grids stain. The corners are the part people stop doing by week three, and a grid that is not cleaned properly smells worse than a pad ever did.
Grass topped tray
The same tray with an artificial turf mat on top instead of a grid.
Upkeep: You wash the turf, which means lifting a urine soaked mat into a bathroom and scrubbing it.
In its favour: Feels closer to grass, so some dogs take to it faster than to a bare grid.
Against it: Urine collects in the turf backing rather than draining cleanly, so the mat holds odour between washes. In Indian summers the plastic gets hot on a balcony.
Coir tray
A tray holding a natural coconut fibre pad. The pad absorbs on contact rather than letting liquid pool underneath.
Upkeep: You replace the pad every three to four weeks. Nothing gets washed.
In its favour: No standing urine, so the odour source is removed rather than rinsed. The pad rolls up and goes in the bin or the compost. The tray is kept.
Against it: There is a running cost, which the wash-it trays do not have. A dog used to grass may need a few days to switch. This is the one we make, so weigh that accordingly.
Wash it or replace it
A mesh grid tray has no running cost at all, which is a genuine advantage and the reason it dominates the listings. What it asks instead is that somebody carries a tray of urine to a bathroom and cleans it, over and over, for as long as the dog lives with you.
Plenty of households do that happily. The ones who struggle tend to discover it around week three, and the failure is quiet: the corners get skipped, then the base gets rinsed rather than scrubbed, and then the room smells and nobody is sure why. The tray is fine. The routine stopped.
A replaceable pad inverts that. It costs money every month and it removes the decision, because there is nothing to keep up with beyond rolling one up and putting a new one down. Which of those trades suits you is not a product question, and anyone who tells you there is one right answer is selling something.
Where we sit
Our Starter Kit is ₹799 for the tray and first coir pad, which puts it near the bottom of that marketplace range rather than above it, with a pad at ₹249 every three to four weeks after. We are the replace-it option, and this page exists partly because nobody was making the honest case for the wash-it one.
If you want drainage as well
A grid tray's appeal is that the dog stands above the liquid rather than on it, and for a large dog or a heavy day that is a real advantage over any flat pad. We make a self draining version for ₹4,499 that answers the same problem differently: urine drains off the coir surface into a sealed base, so the pad stays drier between changes. The base is sealed rather than open, so it does not smell between empties, and it is emptied and rinsed once or twice a week, which the standard kit does not ask of you at all.
It is worth it for a large breed, a heavy eliminator, or a monsoon month when nothing dries. For most dogs the standard kit at ₹799 is enough, and we would rather say so than sell up.
What none of these do, ours included, is flush. Automatic flushing and self cleaning dog toilets are searched for often and effectively do not exist as a working consumer product in India. Anything claiming it is worth reading very carefully before you pay.
What to check before buying any tray
- Size first. The dog should turn around fully on it with room to spare. Most trays sold here are smaller than the photos suggest, and a dog that overshoots the edge stops using it.
- Raised leak proof edges, not a flat lip. On marble or mosaic a leak is not just a mop, because urine left on marble etches it.
- A base you can actually reach into. Square internal corners are where residue collects and where cleaning quietly stops happening.
- Weight and grip. A light tray slides on tile the moment a large dog steps on it, and a sliding tray teaches a dog to avoid it.
- Ask what happens when it is soiled. Every tray answers this differently, and the answer is the entire ownership experience.
Questions people ask
What is a dog potty tray?
A shallow tray that gives a dog a defined place to go indoors. Three kinds are sold in India: a plastic tray with a mesh grid, the same tray with an artificial grass mat on top, and a tray holding an absorbent pad. They differ mainly in whether you wash the surface or replace it.
How much does a dog potty tray cost in India?
Marketplace listings observed in August 2026 ran from about ₹699 to ₹1,715 for plastic mesh grid and grass topped trays, which are one time purchases with no consumable. Our coir Starter Kit, tray and first pad, is ₹799, with replacement pads at ₹249 for small and medium and ₹349 for large. Prices move, so treat the range as indicative.
Is a mesh grid tray better than a coir pad?
They solve the same problem at opposite ends. A grid tray costs nothing to run and asks you to wash a urine tray by hand. A coir pad costs something every month and asks nothing beyond rolling the old one up. If you will genuinely keep up the washing, the grid is cheaper. Most people find out about themselves in the third week.
What size potty tray does my dog need?
Under 8kg a small tray is enough, 8 to 20kg wants medium, and above 20kg needs large. The test is whether the dog can turn around fully while standing on it. Between two sizes, take the larger one.
Do dog potty trays smell?
The mechanism decides it. A grid tray holds liquid in the base until emptied, so odour comes from standing urine and from residue in the corners. An absorbent surface neutralises at the source instead. Ventilation matters either way: put the tray where air moves rather than in a sealed bathroom.
Can I use a potty tray for a large dog?
Yes, with the size and the stability checked. A Labrador needs a large tray that does not slide, and a mesh grid rated for a small dog will flex underfoot. Whatever the surface, a bigger dog produces more at once, so the base fills or the pad saturates faster than the packaging assumes.
Where should I put the tray?
Where the dog already goes. People choose a spot that suits the furniture and then wonder why it is ignored. If there have been accidents by the balcony door, that is the dog telling you where it wants the tray.