[pantsaregood]

Well, this is frustrating. I just wrote about my puppy for about thirty minutes and lost all of it because my cookies expired for this site.

I have a Yorkie named Sophie. She is six months old. Her instinct to remain clean seems to be intact.

Sophie does not know how to communicate that she needs to go outside. The word "outside" to her means "bark wildly to get out of the crate."

She has been in my care for one week. At this point in time, she has had a single accident in her bed. She urinated, though I doubt it was willingly. Earlier today, she urinated on the kitchen floor immediately after being released from her crate.

Sophie does not know how to tell us she wants to go out. We need a verbal cue in case we are asleep.

Sophie is fed twice per day - around 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM. Her water is removed from her crate at 8:00 PM.

She happily plays, sleeps, and eats in her crate as long as someone is present. If Sophie is left alone, she begins crying and barking wildly. She does so for long periods of time - I left to take the garbage out today, and 20 minutes later she was still barking.

I have given her various treats and toys to occupy her in her crate, but none seem to help. Even if she is dead asleep, walking into another room raises her cry-alarm. She cries when my girlfriend and I go to bed, as our bed is on the other side of the room.

We absolutely do not respond to her crying, but we don't know what to do about it. We're going to be out for decent portions of the day for school soon, and we need to get her to calm down.

We need to overcome her separation anxiety and teach her to communicate that she needs to go out.

On another note, her poops seem quite odd. I've heard talk of dogs pooping 20 minutes after eating; Sophie, who eats standard dry dog food, seems to take an extremely long time. She pooped a lot about an hour ago despite the fact she hadn't eaten anything (save a few treats) in over 12 hours. Is this normal?