Hi Barbarjo!
I share your pain! Piper (6 months baby girl) dirties her crate also. She goes on a piddle pad before bed (both number1 and number2) she just seems to save a bit for the crate. I'm ashamed to say that I gave up on that whole tiny crate thing after that, as I didn't want her sitting in that mess. Now I have a larger crate and I put half a piddle pad in the front and a fluffy towel in the back. She no longer goes where she is sleeping..she just takes a few steps forward, goes, and then goes back to sleep. It's still pretty gross, but at least she's not sleeping in it. Needless to say, we are not excelling at the house training at this point. I'm obviously a pushover!
As for the training...we're in an animal-behaviorist sort of class, rather than obedience. I call it "Mommy and Me" class and my sister thinks I'm off my rocker. Piper's a month older than her peers, as we tried the class a couple of times when she was younger and she was just overwhelmed by the activity and would just lay very flat on the floor and close her eyes. So we left those classes pretty quickly (only ended up staying for about 15 minutes each time). Now she loves her new class. It's at the same place. She just wasn't quite ready when she was younger. They separate the small dogs from the larger ones for puppy free-play time. They never use her as the "demo" dog for showing how to train though, as Piper is not food motivated. They tried with "sit" and she looked at them like they were nuts. Then they tried with a larger dog and Piper (who was back at my side at the time) sat like a champ! The command wasn't even for her...she was just paying such close attention to what was going on. It cracked me up...as if she were saying "I know how to sit. I just think the treat thing is lame!" Yorkies are so smart! |