[Friley]

Hello all,

My wife and I bought a 10 week old yorkie we named Friley a few days ago, and we are having a heck of a time figuring out how to train it. It knows how to pee on a pad pretty well (breeder started the training), but we have no control over where it poops as he refuses to poop on the pad or outside. He typically poops on the sidewalk after about an hour walking around (frustrating to say the least), or on our floor.

We have a small airplane carrier thing for him that we use as a crate (since he can't move too much in there), its about 1ft wide and tall, and about 2ft long, and we have been keeping him in it overnight, he has never ever had an accident in it, and he can actually hold it all night till we take him out in the morning (he doesn't even cry so we can sleep!).

Our work schedule dictates that we must be gone from about 8/9am to 5:30pm during the work week. There is no possibility of us coming home during the day due to let him out because of the travel time. After reading a few threads, it seems there may be a couple of strategies, and I'd like your input on what we should do:

1. Get a big wire dog crate with the hard plastic bottom meant for the larger dogs, and put in a towel to sleep on, food and water dish, and a pad. This seems to us the best option, since he can do everything he needs to, and we have a 2nd bedroom we use as an office and can put a large cage like this in. My wife spends a good chunk of time in this room, so when he gets to like his setup (I hope) it will be convenient because they could "hang out" together even when not directly interacting.

2. Buy an "x-pen", and create the same sort of setup, except sticking our little airport carrier/crate in there (with the door open) as his home, and leaving in the food and water and pad. This option would also work, but I like how the big wire crate has a floor which will catch the mess when he misses the pad, the x-pen option would have mess all over the carpet since it has no floor.

Eventually, we want to have a dog that is trained indoor/outdoor, but weather in this part of the country and our work schedule dictates indoor must come first, since it will be cold soon, and then next spring we can hit the outdoor training hard so he knows both. I know that official "crate training" only allows the dog to live in a small crate like we already have, but it also requires someone be around at least every 2-4 hours and thats not possible for us. We would just like your input as to which one of our strategies you would recommend, or if they would even be effective in getting him to pee and poop on a pad. We are also having a somewhat hard time getting him to recognize his name if you have any suggestions. Thanks in advance for all your help!


P.S. Currently, we use our 2nd bathroom and a baby gate to hold him during the day. He sleeps in the airplane carrier/crate (door open) and has food and water, and pees on the pad, but poops anywhere but the pad. Its a 10ft x 10ft room, so I think its too big for him to be "forced" to poop on the pad (so he's not going to learn) when no one is around which is why I'm looking at getting a large wire crate or xpen to make his roaming area smaller.