If he is not going to the bathroom in his crate, seems like he needs to be crated more often to teach him how to "hold" his bladder for longer than an hour at a time. Move the crate around with you room to room when you're home and leave him in it, taking him out only after he has been "emptied".
A 10 month old dog should be able to hold it for at least 4 hours, I would think. My 12 week old pup can already go 4 hours in the crate during the daytime and 8 hours at night...when I'm home with him and he's loose, though, I usually take him out every two to two-and-a-half hours.
I think pee pads would exacerbate this problem, actually. Since he already feels like he doesn't need to alert you when he needs to go out, pee pads definitely aren't going to encourage him to learn that.
I have found that phasing pee pads out entirely in training my pup has helped *immensely* with him learning to hold his bladder and that going in the house is not appropriate. I think pee pads were just confusing him. When I was keeping him in the bathroom all day, he would pee on the pad several times. Now that he's crated until lunch, he will just let out one big long pee when I get home to let him out, and then he's good to go until 5PM. |