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Originally Posted by CaliMomma  It's been 3 weeks and Darla will still not go in her crate. So at night she sleeps with me or on her bed on the floor next to me. She will get up quietly in the night and go pee or poo in the hallway or my sons room. She's confined during my work week in the bathroom were she does use the pad ( only if I pck up my bath mats ) but during the night or day when she's out she will by ass the pad and go we're she pleases. This s causing huge issues here at home especially when she pees right were my littlest is playing  her pooping once or twice in the middle of the night is crazy not sure what to do especially since she still will not go in the crate |
Do you mean that she won't go inside the crate willingly, or that she barks her head off when you put her in there? I didn't have any problems crate training my Bella, and here is how I did it. I got the smallest pet carrier possible and put a terry cloth towel and soft t-shirt inside to line the bottom. I put in a small stuffed animal and a small rope bone, and I put her inside the crate. She didn't go in willingly, but you need to show her who is the boss. I turned the crate so she could see me in the room beside her going about my daily business. Every hour, I took her out to use a potty pad. At first, I had the potty pad inside a cage exactly the same size as the pad so she HAD to go on the pad, but eventually (after a couple of weeks) I opened up the side of the potty pad cage so she could have more freedom and go in and out on her own. I played with her 15 minutes per hour and gave her access to food and water. Then I put her back in the crate. She never peed inside the crate. As time went by (over the course of a couple of weeks), I gave her more and more time outside the crate, but watched her like a hawk, and of course I gave her praise and a treat for proper use of the potty pad. Now (one month later) she spends all day outside her crate and she will go to her potty pad to pee and poop.
At night, I keep her in her crate on a nightstand right by the bed so she can see me sleeping. The first two weeks, I set an alarm for 2 AM so I could get up and take her out to potty. After that, I would rely on her to bark in the night to let me know when she needed to potty. She only had one accident inside her crate when I didn't hear her bark in the night
. She still needs to go once in the night, but she's only 12 weeks old, and I expect that eventually she will be able to hold it all night.
Now, if you don't have someone around 24 hours to keep an eye on your Yorkie, you will have to modify the procedure, such as putting her in a crate that is big enough for a bed area and a potty pad, and pray that she learns to use the pad and not wet her bed. Or use a larger pen with a pad in one corner and a sleeping area in another corner. If she's using the pad properly during the day when you put her in the bathroom, she's doing great, and you just need to get her to learn to potty in the correct area the rest of the time. The key is confinement and showing her who is the boss. If she barks hysterically and continuously when she is crated, you will have to train her to be accustomed to being crated, such as slowly increasing the time she is crated in your presence and praising and treating her lavishly, but if you're going to crate train her, then by golly she is going to have to get accustomed to being in the crate.