She is probably as confused as I am reading that. You can just set pads out and expect her to figure it out. What are you doing to reward her for going in the right place? She doesn't understand that it's OK to go in the house only under certain circumstances. If you want to train her to go outside only, my suggestion is to get rid of the pads completely and work on house training her when you are home. Then you can hire someone, possibly a responsible high school kid who is off for the summer, to let her out every 2 hours until she is big/old enough to hold it for 4 hours.
She hates the crate because she is in it for 9 hours. My dogs are crate trained, but when we used the crates to housetrain them it was something like 30 minutes in the crate, out to pee, free for 30 minutes if they did something outside, then back in the crate 30 minutes OR the crate was used when we couldn't watch them, like if I was showering or cooking dinner, and otherwise they were kept in the same room where they could be supervised. We also bell trained them so that they could tell us when they needed to go out. Even being 2 and 3, they still need to go out about every hour during their active times and at least every 4 hours even when they are napping and being lazy during the day.
It's not easy, but at 5 months all is not lost. She barely has any bladder control. Your job is to reinforce where is the right place to go so that once she starts being able to control herself a little more, she will know just where to go! |