Good Morning everyone,
I know that I've posted something similar to this a while back but it just hasn't changed at all...
I received Roxy Jan of 09 at 8 weeks old. Being that I live in Jersey it was very cold outside for her so I trained her to potty on pee pads. Well she was good until about Aug she started ripping up all her pads and eating her poo so I decided to train her outside potty.. Now I know that it'll take some time to train since she was so use to potty inside. Trust me I had patience
I made a schedule for her and woke up at 5:30 every morning to take her to potty. Well very long story short... She is about 80% potty trained....
Roxy's day goes like this.. 6:00am potty she's quick so she only pees and runs back inside. up until about 6:35 she is eating and playing around in apt. at 6:35 I take her out to potty again this time she has to poo so I take her to poo at times she lets me know if she has to go really bad so we go earlier...
She is crated from 6:50 to about 12:30 when i get home for lunch I take her out and she goes potty outside like clock work... Now potty scheduling is doing great. But here is my dilemma...
I feel absolutely HORRIBLE to leave her in the crate at her age she is 15 months already. So what I did was I tested her to see if she can be left alone in apt.. i closed doors to bathroom doors to rooms and gave her access to only the living room where she spends most of her evening sleeping... So I alternated. Morning potty done. I left her out I come home at 12:30 and before I leave I put her in crate for the afternoon. 1st day she did great... 2nd day I alternated morning in crate and afternoon out of crate... I don't know if I might have confused her a little with alternating so soon because when I got home at 4:30 she had poop inside the house. So she has this thing where she likes to clean up after herself so she eats it.
But I can tell because there were some pebbles left over...
Anywho.. My apt is not so big to be able to put a gate because believe me I have about 3 of them from my old apt back in Nov. Please give me advice on what I should do.. Should I extend her morning time out of crate for a little bit then try afternoon as well. Am I going about it the wrong way?
This is my first doggy and I can't help but wonder because to be honest. I'm 28 years old and I have absolutely no social life at least at times I feel that way because I feel bad that she's locked up in the crate so I rush home to take her out and spend time with her. I'm NOT complaining because I adore my baby but I do feel bad that she is in crate and now to top it off she seems to be getting chubby
obviously not enough play time...
What should I do?
I'm sorry this is so long but I wanted to touch every subject there was.