Quote:
Originally Posted by amanda350  Ok, here is our day till now.. 6:30am I wake up to get my daughter ready for school.. the dogs sleep with me so I carry them with me to her room to wake her up and then we go to the back door. I set them down and say lets go outside and open the door. they run out and we go through the screen porch out the other door and down the steps to the grass.. (they have mastered this already) then once on the grass and since it is first thing in the morning, then they both go pee and poop. they get a treat for this and the neighbors get to see me look like i am having a seizure.. then we go back inside the back door and they walk about 10 ft to threir xpen. I go in first to motivate them to come in and once they do I say good job and set their food bowls down and step out. I leave them in there while I get my daughter ready to go,then before I take her to school I take them out again doing the same thing.. when I get her to school at 7:30 I come home and sit in the recliner and love on the pups anad watch tv until my 3yr old wakes up. then he and I take them outside again always following the same routine. then we come back in, they go in the xpen and I feed my son.. then after he is done eating we cuddle or play for about 30 minutes and then take them out again.. my youngest wakes up the latest at about 10 am and I feed her and play with her and then take them out again.. up until today, we barely ever used the crate.. the xpen was their den..oh, and Kallies crate is the smallest they make and it is to big for her.. i have fixed that tonight though, I put something in there to block the back of it..anyways, we do this all day every 30 minutes to an hour and they eat 3 times per day..they will go whenever they feel like it with no whining or barking or anything. It is hard sometimes to catch them in the act when they are in the xpen so that is why I started the crate today..we all go to bed about 10pm and they sleep with me and hold it all night until last night..one of them jumped off of my huge bed an pooped and then somehow got back on it.. my husband said no more sleeping in our bed.. what am I doing wrong? |
We've crate trained all of our puppies with great success. This is the rule we use when crate training. Once you take them out of the crate and they go potty they get lot's of praise and get to stay out (supervised or in the x-pen) and play for about 45 minutes then it's back in the crate (This is the hard part but very important). Keep them in the crate for about an hour to hour & 1/2 then they can come back out. If they do not go "potty" they must go back in their crate. They can only stay out (either in the x-pen or with you) if they've done their thing. If you're consistant, with repetition they'll figure it out. I think you're having such a hard time because they've been in the x-pen and not the crate, it's too big and that's why they'll mess in it. Make sure the crate is just big enough for them to lay in and turn around in and they shouldn't mess in it. It's really hard because you don't want to put them back in the crate after 45 minutes but believe me it will pay off. I got kind of lax with Bella and my husband reminded me that I had to put her back in after the 45 minutes and once I started doing that I saw the results fairly quickly. I'm also constantly watching her, I can tell when she has to "go" just in her actions. If they start going to the door to let you know they have to "go" and it's close to the time to put them back in the crate, let them stay out longer if they "go" but then put them back in the crate within 20 minutes or so. The key is to not give them an opportunity to "go" in the house. It's definitely taken longer with Bella then with any of our labs (about twice as long) but it's worked and now she's 6 month old and goes to the door when she needs to do her thing. Also, you must go out with them every single time to make sure they really "went". I live in Washington state and that's not so much fun in the rain but I stand there with my umbrella in the back yard saying "go potty" until she goes. That's the other thing, I always say "go potty" and both she and Lucee know what that means so when I say that now, they know what I want them to do. It takes a lot of patience and consistancy (just like kids! LOL!). I hope my rambling helps! Good luck!