[jmdeguzman]

My girlfriend and I just got our Yorkie on Saturday and we love him! He's currently about 10 weeks old. We have him on a schedule where we feed/water him 4 times a day (6:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 4:00 PM, and 8:00 PM). We were trying to take him out to pee/poo on Sunday but it's just way too cold for him here right now and he shivers like crazy, so we use pee pads. Got a few questions though:

- When can he start to be really house trained? Should we keep him 100% in the house (no outside training at all) until he's ready for real training? I've heard that we shouldn't expect to be able to actually train him until he's about 16 weeks old.
- Are using pee pads fine until he is ready to be house trained?
- How should we set up the crate/playpen? We currently have a playpen that has his crate in there, plus a pee pad and some toys. We leave his crate in there with the door open. Is this fine? Or should we just leave him in the crate with the door shut and not bother with a playpen? (My girlfriend is able to come home and check up on him at 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, and 1:00 PM to let him out for a bit)
- At night he whines/cries in his crate which we bring into the bedroom with us. The bed is kind of high so I'm not sure if he knows we are there. should we just ignore this?
- For the whining/crying at night, it seems like he's able to sleep peacefully (no whining at all) if we sleep on the floor next to the crate. Is this ok? Are we setting any bad habits/expectations this way?

Thanks in advance. Looking forward to raising our pup properly!