I have always crate trained by dogs until they were housebroken. My golden Lucky hated the crate so much he decided he would housebroke fast. Got him at 6 weeks of age and he was 100% housebroken by 9 weeks of age. I kid you not. Give he would only be alone for a few hours at first but he did not like the crate. If I had to go out for more than a few hours I would put him in a mess baby play pen and he would slept. I used the mesh babyplay pen for him when I could not watch him closely when he was a baby i.e. cooking, cleaning, or showering. He loved his playpen and would cry to get into it when he needed a nap. He would probably still be in it except once he reach 60 pounds I could not lift him into it. It did not have sides that came down.
Cozy was/is crate trained but was rarely crated because people are always home. I work 3p-11p and my mom get home from work at 2:45p -3:15p. So Cozy pees before I leave for work at 2:30 and then just has to wait 45 minutes tops for someone to get home. Also if my brother does not have school, in college, he will take the dogs for the day/afternoon.
Neither Lucky nor Cozy slept in their crates at night because they would hold their bladders for minimum of 8 hours from the time they were little puppies. Lucky could hold it for 8 hours when I got him at six weeks. The breeder said that he would give the puppies new paper everynight at 11 pm and the paper would be clean the next morning at 7-8 am. What he said was the truth at least for him puppies. The breeder I got Cozy from said that from the time they were 8 weeks old the puppies always slept in her bed or a playpen next to her bed to start them with housebreaking early so if they cried during the night she would take them out. She stated that as long as you don't wake her puppies up they held their water fine and this held true for Cozy. I had really good breeder that loved their dogs and looked to make the transition to their new families as easy as possible. |