[meliss589]

I have a teacup Yorkie that is 1 year and 4!months old. When my husband and I are gone, we put her in a crate. Because the smallest crate we could buy was still too big, we restricted the space so she had just enough room to turn around in it. She would poop and pee in the crate very single time we left her, whether it was 30 minutes or 8 hours while we were at work. We continued to stay consistent with the crate for about a year. But every time we left, I would have a ton of cleaning up to do and have to bath her because she would be laying in her own poo! We decided to try one of those play pen type crates and put a pee pad down. Thinking she would do her business on the pad at one corner and lay in her bed in the other corner, this would be a much better alternative to the crate. Boy, were we wrong! She will pee on the pad, no problem. But pooping is another issue. She never poops on the pad but always on the floor. Again, every time she is in the pen, she poop no matter how long she's been in there or if she just did her business outside before being put in the pen. She is potty trained 100% when we are home. She will ring a little bell we put on the back door and hasn't had an accident in many, many months.

What am I doing wrong?! It is so frustrating (and expensive to use a roll on paper towels every few days scraping poo off the floor) that we can't leave the house for 30 minutes without coming home to a mess! Every post or advice page I've ever read says "they won't potty where they stay" but this isn't the case with my Gracie!