Peeing in crate!
 

We have a 4 year old yorkie who we adopted 9 months ago. She had very little training when we rescued her and has come VERY far since then.

Our issue now is that we can not get her to stop peeing in her crate!!! She is in there while we are gone. We have tested to make sure she can hold it and she is definitely capable of waiting to pee.

We have tried an array of different types of crates, no bedding, a little bedding... etc. She still pees... and then lays in it and needs a bath....

We are out of ideas! HELP! :)

Is your crate too big maybe? I have found that if you give them only enough space to have their bed then they wont pee in it.You can put a cardboard box in the back part to make it a little smaller.

Hope this helps

We have tried 4 different crates... small, big, just right... she still pees. The one we have now is a bit bigger and has a divider so we can make it exactly the size we need it.

It is hard to say. If she was four when you got her then maybe it is a habit that will be hard to break.I had a dog years ago that did that and i gave her only enough room to turn around in when in the crate. Sounds mean but it was the only way.

Usually they dont like to lay in their own mess but some come from places where they did it as small pups and so it is hard to change them.I had a yorkie years ago that used my house as a toilet . On the beds ,the couch,etc etc. I didnt know about crate training back then. I lived with it for ten long years so I know what you are going through.

I am sure you will find the answer on here from someone.:)

Anyone with ideas on how to break this habit?

We are trying to be full on crate training mode right now but it gets frustrating! She has only enough room to turn around and nothing more. We feed her in the crate and she sleeps in there too.

House training
 

It might be more helpful to get a professional dog trainer if the dog is 4 years + old now. However, until you get to that point, you can try these suggestions if you have not already tried them.

1).Using a treat and a word that you would like to represent peeing or pottying or those very words, take your dog for a walk. When she is in the act of using the bathroom repeat the "magic" word continually so that she can hear them distinctly. When she finishes, say Good Pee, (or your word for it) and give her a treat! Repeat this every time she goes pee or potty!

Continue this until the dog "gets it" . Before you leave for work in the morning, and again when you get home from work when you let her out of the crate, first thing, outside to use the bathroom and use the magic words!.
Clean up accidents with out fussing out loud at the dog.

It will depend on the dog and continuing practice as to how long this will take to learn.

Also, I would limit the food and water late at night. If she is not too small and you don't have to worry about hypoglycemia, she dosn't need food until morning anyway.

When you are at home, keep her in the crate while you are doing things that don't involve her, then let her out to pee and potty first then play. Make sure the crate is clean before you put her back in, every time. So she dosn't associate the crate with bathroom activity.

2) I have heard of some folks having great success with using clicker training with house training too.

you can look up Karen Pryor's website and there are others too. If you watch enough of the free videos, you can get some ideas on how to train your dog to go outside to pee using a clicker. It still depends on the dog and whether they "get it" or not. I have not used any clicker methods yet, but they look very interesting and I want to try using the clicker to train my dog doing something!

I forget who suggested it, but someone here on the Yorkie talk forum suggested the clicker training.

Good luck!

food!
 

Thank you for your reply. I don't know why we never thought to reward with food for going! She is SO food motivated that it would make perfect sense that it would be the solution!

She only pees in her crate when we are gone, or when she thinks we have gone... and after a couple hours usually (we have videotaped her). So if she is getting a treat only when we are here and outside then it may work to solve it! We are going to try it starting tonight!

If she only does it when you are gone...sounds like she has separation anxiety.

I had a dog that did fine in her crate when we were home and at night, but would go in the crate when we left her. We finally just gated off the kitchen and put her in there with her food and her bed and she did fine.

Have you tried putting her in a gated off room and see how she does then.
Also when you leave, don't make a big deal about it....just leave, same when you come home....don't make a big deal about that either. Start slow...put her in her "area" and go outside for a few min. Gradually add a little more time and see how she does. Maybe if she doesn't know you are leaving...it won't be so bad for her.

Good Luck!!

:)I got a 6 yr old a few months ago, that was pad trained only she wouldn't go on the pad but on my carpet for like the first 6 weeks.We started crateing her when we're not home or sleeping, or even out of the room. If I was watching tv and had to leave the room (bathroom, answer phone, etc) I took her with me, never giving the chance for another "accident" on the floor. The crate had her bed and a small pee pad in it. She would hold it overnight sometimes and others not. When I would leave the house and be gone 20 minutes, she would pee in it, even after a pee break outside prior to putting her in there. I knew she was capable of holding it for up to 7-8 hrs, and I really didn't care for the pad situation anyway. My others go outside through doggy dogs. I reduced the size of her area, just big enough for the bed only, removed all pee pads from everywhere, Stopped her access to water at night two hours before bedtime, and give her a small ice cube in her area at bedtime. I take her outside every two hours when I'm home and I wait for the poop (morning & night)before I take her back inside, she had this habit of peeing outside then coming over and laying down, so I'd take her inside and 5 minutes later, she'd poop in the house. Now, I wait an adiitional 5-10 minutes, she'll pee then lay down and sure enough 5 minutes later will poop. It has been 6 days now and we are pad free and accident free so far. It is hard, I feel your pain, but hang in there and stick to your guns, they are stubborn little creatures!:p

Do you know what her background is? If she was kept in a cage all her life, she got used to eliminating there and her instinct to keep her "den" clean is gone. Crate training usually doesn't work with these dogs.

How long are you gone? I think it's unreasonable to expect a dog to stay locked up in a crate with no room to move around if it is for the whole workday. An exercise pen with a enough room for a bed and pee pads is a much kinder solution.

I always recommend the book Secondhand Dog to anyone who adopts a rescue:

Amazon.com: Second-Hand Dog: How to Turn Yours...

If she's food motivated that's great for you. Take her out as often as you can and always give her a treat. My Jonah will go 3-4 times just to get more treats. How long do you leave her alone? I had to cover a vacation last week at work so I paid one of the neighborhood kids to come and walk my pups around noon (long days) and then my husband came home to put them out in between too (his office is next building over) If I hadn't done that and was gone all day...forget it! They would have messed all over eachother and then licked it off eachother.

Yes, she does have a bit of separation anxiety that we have been working on for a few months. Little by little she gets better. She is usually good until about an hour or so before we get home or if she hears something outside.

And unfortunately we tried the gating her in an area... and came home to her outside the space-- apparently she has springs in her legs! Then we tried putting her in the extra bedroom and she peed EVERYWHERE!! It was a disaster!

The sad thing is that we have very little idea of what her background was. And the things we were told about her-- we have found is completely opposite to who she REALLY is!! :rolleyes:

We were told she was used for breeding, surrendered from the owners because she was nipping at children and crate trained. Only to find that she is terrified of ADULTS and will nip at them but NEVER at children, it took us 2 months to train her not to pee in the house when we are home and after 9 months she continues to pee in her crate. (we stopped working on the crate training for a few months because there were other pressing issues that we had to work on with her instead)

The crate we found she is most comfortable with is a wire one... we bought a larger size so that a bed and pee pad could fit in there... BUT we found that she pees in the bed and then continues to lay in it!! Then we bought large pee pads to cover the whole floor of the crate.... and she pees in the middle and lays in it.......... SO ... ... Here we are still.......frustrated and unsure what to do!

Maybe doggie daycare will help? Here are some options in your area ranging from $15 a day to $40 a day.

Dog daycare Minneapolis, Minnesota, daycare providers rates & online reservations

ditto!!!!!!! :)

She goes to daycamp 1 day a week and it has done wonders for her socialization! We also do playgroup for that.

It isn't possible financially though to have her in it everyday. It ends up being almost $500 a month if she goes every day!!

Hello!! You are so sweet to rescue this lil one. She sounds like a sweetie that needs some guidance. Chances are, with all the methods you have tried, the crate is not going to work for her. Snickers had MASSIVE sep anx (would pee and poop in confinement) and we tried everything but only 1 thing ended up working for him. We bought Snickers a baby play pen that is for human babies. It was about 3ft by 4ft in area and about 5-6 inches off the ground. It had all mesh sides so he could see out and we put blankets and toys inside for comfort. We put this playpen next to a window and waited to see what happened. The point of being able to see out the window REALLY soothed Snick, we live about 1/2 a mile from a main road and he could see the cars passing by. Something to occupy him. Now, we did not get an immediate result, so we started by putting homemade belly bands on Snick and he did pee in them for about a week and then starting holding it. It worked! He did know we were leaving when he was put in the pen (so be sure to out yours in the crate/playpen/whatever you use WHILE you are HOME so she doesn't associate the space to when you're going to leave her.) After a week or so we removed the belly bands and he got it. About 4 months later, we would leave him in the house for short amounts of time and eventually made the times longer and now he has free reign of the house and has been great. Snickers just turned 1 about 2 weeks ago.

Hope this might help, just another idea:)

Good Luck:)
Snick & Viv

Ps. DO NOT give your dog attention 5 min before you're going to leave and after 5 once you have returned. :)

Yes, I understand. It must be nice that one day to come home with no mess:) It will probable just take a bit more time and patience...my pups are not perfectly trained yet either...

Thanks so much. I am learning a lot from all your suggestions. I have similar problems with my yorkie.

less food in the am
 

I thought I would give everyone an update.

In the morning we reduced her food to 1/8 what we normally give her. and she hasn't had an accident in two days! Next week we will continue and see how it goes!