[smittojess]

Hello, I have been browsing the internet and other sources for information on yorkies for a few months now before I finally bought my Bentley. I am a 22 year old nursing student (working part time at a hospital) and my boyfriend lives with me working full time. We just got Bentley he is a few days shy of 12 weeks old - mainly because we are animal lovers but I have heard great things about yorkies -- not to mention he was SOO cute. Now that he's home were feeling a bit overwhelmed. Here are a few questions, any advice would be appreciated...We bought a crate after being advised that's the best place for him to learn to go potty, and to be alone. We are both on day shift at our jobs for the next few weeks so in the morning we feed him breakfast (Nutro dog food supposed to be good for him?) and take him outside immediately to go potty. we keep saying "go potty" and taking him to the same place.. most of the time this works. After that we put him in his cage and we both have been working day shift. We leave animal planet on and have plenty of toys in his crate and our neighbors say he doesn't bark during the day (apartment building). My boyfriend comes home during lunch to let him out, play, etc. Soon we will be working opposite shifts so he wont be home alone so much however should we leave water in his cage?? I have heard yes, then I have heard to put the divider in to make the cage small so he only has room to lie?? He has yet to poop in his cage I imagine he's peeing in there but it's extremely difficult to be sure considering he only pees a quarter size puddle at a time. Should we leave any breakfast he doesn't eat in the cage during the day or wait until lunchtime?? I am really scared about the hypoglycemia so I'm not sure what's best. Also we just have a water dish but should we invest in the water bottle to hang and the additive to make the water more nutritious? The evenings we take him out at least every hour usually every 30 minutes and he usually goes potty. Should we stick to the crate philosophy of if he doesn't go potty put him in the cage? Or is this too much time in the crate??? Is that truly the "Crate training" (He completely ignores the potty pads by the way we tried those so that's not going to work.) After the evening we feed him dinner and he usually eats most of it throughout the night. This is the next part I'm confused about.. at night when we go to bed we put him back in the crate (again should we make it smaller or let him have the whole 22 x 16 space) and put him in the living room in front of animal planet and he barks for 20 minutes then sleeps through the night. I was wondering if this again is cruel to leave him out in the living room or if we should put him by our bed?? The night we tried to put him by the bed in his crate he barked for over an hour before I moved him back into the living room. I'm nervous about him sleeping in bed because it's extremely high off the ground and don't want to roll over into yorkie poop.
I guess I am just wondering the best behavior to enforce at his age regarding potty training, and a schedule given our busy schedule. As I said in a few weeks I will be working at night so Bentley won't be alone all day. We love him very much already and he is a true joy I've just heard lots of things about potty training and ensuring the positive behavior when he is young.
thank you for any advice/help!!