Quote:
Originally Posted by pstinard  If he is sleeping with you at night, what is the purpose of the crate? |
the purpose would be for training him to go outdoors
only by way of crating & sticking to a strict schedule. I don't like puppy pads. or the idea of him thinking its okay to go in the house at all. It's just our only option currently because of the crazy cold winter we're having.
To clarify, he's crate trained, as far as the traditional definition of crate trained goes. He doesn't mind being in his crate, he even likes going in there for naps, but hes not broken of his "pet store pup" habit of going to the bathroom in his crate if he has to go.(hes not from a pet store, but I have reasons to believe he was kept in a crate more often then not- don't think his breeder was as great as i originally believed.)
he's sleeping with me at night now because the crate we have for him is so big that its near pointless to keep him in it. he sleeps through the night and wakes up early with me at 6am, and pottys on the pad in the morning. which im fine with for now, but what I'm wondering is if there's a point in practically regressing and using a crate (a smaller crate) as a tool for house breaking during the day time hours full-time once he has all of his vacs and the weather is decent enough to be consistent with taking him out on a schedule?
It's just confusing him when one day its nice out, we go out all day long several times and have a 100% outdoor potty day, and the next day its raining ice out there and hes back to the puppypad. So I figure it makes more sense as far as consistency goes that I start out-door training him in once the weather lets up.
I've house broken several puppies via the crate method, but never a toy breed and never in winter so this is pretty different from anything I've dealt with before and I just want to make sure that crating him at that age wont be traumatic for him. Yorkies seem to be a lot more emotionally delicate than the other dogs I've trained so I don't want to hurt him psychologically by crating him "too late in the game" so to speak.
I simply cannot crate him up and get him out regularly right now. He wont "go" in the yard when there's snow on the ground. My husband shoveled a huge spot out to walk him out to and around, but he still just shakes and whines. I've tries sweaters, puffy coats, even put a pad down out there. He just hates it. The "good days" we had, were 45-50 degree days. anything below that and he's just looking at me like I'm punishing him by taking him out there. I know once he's trained and gets a bit older he will get better with the inclimate weather, he's just being a puppy. I can't really blame him, its bitter cold out there. Also on top of all that, he needs his final set of vacs still and that's not for another 2 weeks.
I guess in a nutshell I just want to know if anyone has used the crating method on an older puppy that has had a fair amount of free-run of the home for a while. And if it's a bad idea, what are some alternatives?