[Roxie21]

My situation is a little different because I am days and my husband is nights.

First of all, I do take up water each night at 8:00 to 8:30. I let her go out one last time around 10:15 pm to go potty and I always make sure she goes and she does.

I wake up at 4:15am but don't take her out of her crate around 4:45am because she is still so sleepy. But once she is outside she does both like clockwork. I put her food and water out but she has no interest in it. (I keep that available for her all day now but didn't when I was first housebreakin her to learn her potty schedule.) She only wants to go back to bed. I then take her to my son's room (because I leave for work at 5:00am.) where she sleeps until 7:00 before he goes to high school. He gives her the opportunity once again to eat or use the restroom. Still she is not interest. He places her into the crate until my husband arrives home at 7:30am. He lets her out and she runs around and does want she wants until 11:30am. He then places her into the crate so he can get some sleep and nap time for her. I arrive home at approx 1:45pm and let her out. From that point on until once again 10:15pm she plays, goes for walks etc... She usually is not interested in eating till around 3:00pm. Even then she will only nibble. She is in her crate a total of 3 hours -week days.

Because we have various shifts this works for us. Plus I have a college student who comes home at various time during the week, so sometimes she has company 24 hours a day. The weekends she is up with me at 7:00am ( that is sleeping in late for me) and she is with someone always.

We only use the crate when we are all not home. Because of the lay out of my house it is hard to fence off a area ( not even the kitchen) and after her jumping up on furniture and retrieving items( very sneaky) she should not have we now place her in the crate but never for more then 2 hours at any given time.

Somehow this works for us. I hope as she gets a little older I can lplace her in a room but for now she screams and howls when we try and for some reason prefers to be in her crate with her blanket. She even goes to sleep in it when we are all at home.