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Originally Posted by yasminv1  I sort of understand. Please don't take this the wrong way..not trying to sound condescending..just wanting to understand. What is the difference between her peeing on her bed, towel or shirt and being wet and her peeing on the plastic and being wet? Again, yesterday was the first time we took bed, shirt and towel out.
Should I continue using the crate with bedding (we can put that back in there) or do the xpen for now until she is a bit older and can hold it for 2 hours? My fear is she becomes accustomed to being in her pee/poop even if there is wet bedding in there. Also, if I should continue to try the crate..leave the divider or no divider? |
If she pees on a blanket or towel, the blanket or towel holds lots of the moisture, and she can stay relatively dry, if she pees on a plastic tray, the pee stays there and she can't escape it at all. She will be wet and chilled. Think of a baby lying in a damp diaper vs. lying in a puddle of water.
I personally think most people make housebreaking too hard; they seem to be training themselves and not the dog. Since you have an x-pen, I would use that, and keep the crate door open, and have bedding inside the crate, and place pee pads outside the crate. If you keep on training the way you are training, you might end up training him to use the crate as a urinal, many people say their dogs won't go except in the crate, and this is not a good thing. I would leave the divider in and do the crate training overnight. I kept Joey's crate by my bed at nighttime, and he'd cry when he had to pee, so I would just place him on a pee pad in the bathroom and return him to his crate. Of course, praise her and give her a little treat, like a cheerio, when she does pee on the pad. I never punished for making a mistake, only rewarded for doing it correctly. They really want to keep their bedding dry, and this is instinctual, but if you don't allow them out at the proper times, you can train them to soil the bedding permanently. At first, I kept 2 pee pads in the x-pen, and as he got older, I only used one, they really prefer going on a pee pad, and the disposable ones have a scent on them that attracts them to the spot. Any accidents on carpeting and bedding should be cleaned with Nature's Miracle because they tend to want to go in the same spots over and over.