New Dog Owner..Not sure if I'm right
 

Hi there,
I bought my yorkie on thursday from a breeder. He is 11.5 weeks old now and his name is Snickers. I've never had a dog before so I wasnt sure what to do. Here is my dilemma.
First, I bought him a crate and playpen which is set up upstairs in one of our bedrooms. Nobody uses the room, it is solely his. I have a crate attached to a play pen and in the play pen are his toys and pee pads. He pees on the pads which is nice but poops sometimes just a little off the pads. My concern is that we have no room to make a bedroom for him downstairs so is it ok if he uses the pee pads now and later I train him to go outside? Given his age I dont want him to form any habbits that I may later regret. Second, i'm a working guy so how long can I leave him home alone. I cant always supervise him. I work a 9-5 but for that reason I bought him a play pen so that he can run around freely. Is this ok? Can he be left alone? If not I may have to look at day care for the short term.
Next, he is sick with kennel cough so he cant get his second set of vaccinations. For that reason I cant enroll him in puppy training. Is there a certain age which I should start by? If i star him at 14 weeks is that ok? too late?
Just want to ensure the best for snickers. Please let me know!

Thanks in advance.
Sats

Nothing in a dogs life is never not changable as long as you work from gentle and take your time so as for training if it works for you do it the best comfortable way for you and switch it as need. There is a great advantage of having a dog pee pad trained when a small breed as you do not have to take them out in very nasty weather.

14 weeks is not to late to start taking him to class although ideally itbe better if he could go now but it is what it is and when he is well get him out and socali to the max.
If you can find him a dog walker as he so young and in need of soicalization to come in and just play with him that be a good thing.

JL

Spike didn't take his puppy training until he was almost six months old, and he did just fine - we even went on to do the intermediate class (he was about a year old by then), and he did just fine. They are always willing to learn if you are willing to teach them. We might do the advanced class this winter to give us something to do if we can't go for walks!

RE:
 

Thank you so much for your responses. Snickers is doing better at not barking at night but his potty training is rather slow. He still often misses the mark. I'll keep you updated.

Sats

I know when my Gwen was little she'd pee on the pad but the poop would be off next to it, I tried everything, moved the pad, put down two etc. One day I figured out the problem, she would stand with her front legs on the pad then poop but it would be on the floor next to it b/c that's where her bottom was, I picked her up mid-poop whenever I caught her like that and turned her around so her bottom was on the pad and her front feet on the floor, she caught on pretty quick to that. Good luck.

Chase hardly misses, but when he does it's because only his two front paws are on the pee pad! However, he only misses with pee. I've been trying to correct him whenever I catch him. How long did it take Gwen to realize that all four paws need to be on the pad?

Don't worry. There was a five month old puppy in my puppy training class and he did just fine!

One more thing to consider...usually when you find the poop next to the pee pad is it b/c the pee pad is almost saturated with urine. Usually I would change the pee pad everytime I see Cassi urinate 2-3x. So if you're out longer, you may want to place 2 pee pads on the floor next to each other.

As for training, you can always try to train your furbaby the basic commands (i.e., sit, stay, down..etc.) on your own, until he has all his vaccinations. It's not too difficult, but you do need a lot of patience and treats on hand. The key thing is to keep the training short (approx. 15 minutes per day) and repeat the same command over and over again, until they understand the command. Good luck!

In terms of training, I would start teaching him simple commands right away. That way he'll be ahead of the game when you get him to classes.

Well she has her good days and bad days, she gets that her back legs need to be on it but sometimes she just forgets how MUCH of her back legs need on it lol.