[sims822257]

Hey guys, I have an 8 month old little boy who is really good at going out his doggie door when he needs to potty when we are home with him. He rarely ever has an accident. BUT....when we leave him we tried locking him in his crate and he would pee in there even if left only for an hour. I tried this crate thing for a couple of months and I just gave up. I was coming home every 3 hours to let him out and he was still going pee in there so I just decided to go back to locking him in his X-Pen which allows him to use the doggie door too. The thing is sometimes he will pee on the tile floor in his x-pen instead of using the doggie door which is right there. He only does this while we are gone and is 100% potty training while we are home for the most part. Can any one tell me how to get him to stop doing this? I mean I know he knows he should use the doggie door and go outside since he does it all the other times - why is he doing this occasionally? Sorry for the long e-mail but I am just confused. I think he is trying to show me he is the alpha dog - ugh!