[Helene46]

Hi, my name is Helene..I joined this forum several months ago when I got my first yorkie. Unfortunatly I was not able to keep her because I just could not house train her. I tried EVERYTHING!! and nothing worked. It made me sad to get rid of her, but I just could not keep her any more. I have another dog in the house (lab) who is housebroken, but she would pee on my carpet after the yorkie did.

To try and make a long story short I am the proud mama of another yorkie. I love the breed and so want one! I had one all picked out and was going to get her after she was weaned from her mama. For many reasons tha that I will not get into right now, I wound up getting her at 5-1/2 weeks. The main reason, the owners wanted her gone! Sooo...needless to say I took her and have been playing "mama' to her. She is doing wonderfully..eating puppy chow drinking water from a bowl etc and has been for almost 2 weeks. She will be 7 weeks on Tuesday.

I keep her in a crate and while I realize she is too young to potty train I would love to be able to get her in the habit of going on a puppy pad. I do not want her to think of the crate as her potty..but rather her "safe haven"....So this is where I am having problems and am looking for a little advise...I have read the threads on house training, but we are not there yet...

So this is our schedule. I get up at 4:30am and leave the house at 6:15. My husband doesn't leave the house until about 11:30 for work, so he can help me that way...the problem is, I do not get home from work until about 5 which means puppy will be in her crate from 11:30-5...

So my question is..should we be using another approach? I was thinking gating her off in the bathroom...maybe putting her box in the bathroom and lay some pads down ..so she has her crate to sleep in and a place to go potty. Oh of course a lot of chew toys too because she loves chewing on things already...

Another question is, how do I get her to realize that the pad is the place for her to pee and poop, not the floor and not the crate? Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Helene