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Originally Posted by Elbow Hello everyone,
My husband and I just bought a new Yorkie for our son...her name is Elbow. She is about 5 months old...we've had her for about 2 weeks...and training her is absolute hell! We started putting her in a crate because that is what everyone told us to do. The thing is...she ALWAYS poos there....and by the time I get home...I have to bathe her! It's been 3 days in a row now! She pees on her training pad SOMETIMES...wont' go outside when we go for walks..and pees anywhere in the house....we've tried to schedule her eating so that she won't poo whenever she pleases...but even though we feed her once in the morning and once at night...she poos all throughout the day...and its never predictable!
HELP! How do I train her? She hates her training pad...if she does go on it..it looks like it was just an accident! |
Hello Again Orinskye!
Elbow:
Posters here know I subscribe to the Whole Dog Journal. It so happens that this month’s issue has an article on crate training (you can visit their website to get a copy of this article). The writer discusses her surprise that on the email list she belongs to, she learned that animal shelters are turning away potential adopters who want to crate train their dogs. However, the writer, like myself, feels that crate training is an excellent way to get dogs housebroken. Well, she relays in her article that the problem is that people are “over-crating” their dogs. From your post, I am guessing that you, like 99% of other Americans, are a two person, two income household and no-one is around during the day (you are feeding your puppy in the morning and night and I suppose letting him out at those times). Sad to say, too much time in the crate leads to a puppy that can no longer hold it in, has in accident in the crate, and thereby can no longer be housebroken with a crate (the crate is now marked with the puppy’s scent). Your puppy is very young and just like a human infant, not in complete control of his bowel movements (the muscles and nervous system still need to develop). I don’t have the article in front of me but I think she used the rule of thumb that a puppy should not be in a crate for more hours than his age (four month old dog should not be in the crate for more than four hours for example). With tiny toy dogs, I’d half that for all the reasons I’ve posted so many times before. Let’s face it, most Yorkies are not easy to housebreak, again for all the reasons I’ve listed in other posts. Sadly, many people purchase small dogs thinking they are going to be easier to keep and train and suddenly find themselves putting up posts such as yours! Crate training IS an excellent tool for housebreaking puppies but it can be easily overused. A puppy should not be spending 70+% of his time in a crate. Even from a physical and psychological development standpoint, he needs more exercise than that.
OK. So the question is, what to do? First thing to ask, is it possible for anyone in your family to relieve your puppy at least one more, preferably twice more times a day? How old is your child? If you kid gets home from school, say around 3 PM, he could give the puppy a pee-pee break then. If no one is home, there are other options:
1) A pet sitter?
2) Day care? (for the dog that is!)
3) Not my favorite option, but it may be your only one, using an exercise pen and a wee-wee pad. This option DOES NOT teach your dog what it means to be housebroken but it does keep him confined to one space so that he isn’t marking up your entire house but it also helps prevent him from going in a confined space and being tortured by having to sit in his soil all day. I’m a big proponent of teaching dogs to go outside because I think it, in the big picture, helps them learn housebreaking with whole lot less confusion (paper training is a difficult concept for many dogs because “where it is OK and where it is not OK” is variable – sometimes the paper is in the bathroom, sometimes in the kitchen. Sometimes the dog pees on the paper and misses and now its on the floor, is that OK? What if the dog misses and hits the wall (a male dog problem)? It’s very easy to make up a household with scent and confuse a dog with this method). That said, with training, I’m also a realist and recognize that you need to work to feed your family. If all else fails, I’d go with the ex-pen! You might want to use regular newspaper in stead of a wee-wee pad for one reason - if your puppy is a chewer and no one is around to observe him, he could chew the wee wee pad. Some wee wee pads have an absorbent inner layer. If swallowed this could make your puppy very sick. Newspaper, will allow leaks which will cause you problems with "marking" so if you go that route, make sure you put the ex-pen in the same place every day and understand that this spot will be "marked." Again, this is not a great solution, but it may be, depending on your financail means and lifestyle the best option available to you.