The short answer is no. I do not want my dogs to be comfortable going potty in the house under any circumstances, so I don’t want them to practice that behavior at all.
My preference is to crate train puppies so that they understand the concept of waiting to go potty versus going as soon as they want. I never leave a puppy in its crate longer than I know they can hold it. A good rule of thumb is that a puppy can hold its bladder for as many hours as it is months old. So a three-month-old dog should go outside every three hours, a four-month-old every four hours, and so forth.
That’s valuable until about six months old. After training for that amount of time, your dog should be able to understand the concept.
Puppy pads are only useful in a couple specific applications–for example, if your dog has a physical issue or a health problem like incontinence due to surgery. In that case, a potty pad may be the only solution. If your dog has trouble walking, the same thing might be true.
Puppies under a month old often have pads in their whelping area, but that is for ease of cleanup for their handlers, not for potty training purposes.
