My almost 5-month puppy poops a few minutes to 5 hours after a meal. It varies. I used to place her in a crate but the hassle of waking up in the middle of my sleep just to let her out and do her thing (because she won't poop inside her crate) just drained me. So what I did after 2 weeks of such tiring routine, I bought a stainless 8-panel fence and placed her there with her bed and toys and a plastic weewee pad. The area it creates is quite big so she just do her business anywhere there (hopefully in the weewee pad). Even if she pees or poops in the floor, this setup is better because most of the time she doesn't step on her mess. She gets up from her bed to pee or poop then go back straight to bed and sleep some more. She wakes up when I wake up in the morning and that's when I clean up the mess she made.
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