[jdmfastdc2]

Sorry I have not posted for awhile. My yorkie, Calvin, is 6-7 months old at this point. He is super small, under 3 lbs, and so cute. He is pretty much not potty trained at all. I live in Michigan, and with the weather, its quite difficult to take him outside. We have pee pads throughout the house, and he seems to be pretty good when it comes to pee, but he poops wherever (Seems to only do it on carpet) It has been hard to get him on a schedule, due to myself and my wifes work schedule. Currently he is caged Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri from about 8am-3pm. I feed him first thing in the morning and then let him out. He usually doesnt go, and my wife feeds him again right when we get home, wait 20 min and let him out. He usually doesnt go again, lol. He sleeps in our bed at night. Now heres where the big problem starts. My wifes work wants her to go back to complete full time, which leaves us both not home M-F from 8-5. Between the 2 of us and our neighbor, we can be sure he is let out at least once a day, so thats not an issue but I have multiple questions.

1) How do we handle feeding him? Do we leave food and water right in his crate?

2) Do I put him in a crate or would it be better to get an exercise pen and put it in our storage room with pee pads, his bed. etc.?

3) How do we continue house training with it being 2 degrees outside? He gets very cold when you take him out, and shivers and just wants right back inside. Training him to want to go out when he has to go seems impossible. I am fine with the pee pads, but can he be trained to poop on them? If so, i clearly dont want to buy a new pee pad every time he poops but I could leave one in the storage room if he could learn to use that.

thank you for your help. I am sure I have more questions but ill start there!