Your expert opinions on my yorkie's potty solution? (Me = yorkie newbie)

[sepulchralx]

Hello people, I'm new to the forum - name is Michael and I have an 11 week old, 4.5lb male Yorkie I named Newton, that my wife purchased for us three weeks ago.

My wife and I work 9 hours a day (she's a nurse, I'm an engineer) so we're crating him in a 13" x 23" crate during the day. Currently, my biggest challenges with him are:

- Getting him to become a bit more independent from us (stop crying and squealing from his crate when we are leaving)

-Getting him to stop biting us and unapproved objects.

- Getting him potty trained

Because I live in an area full of wildlife, and without a fence, Newton spends almost all his time finding rabbit and squirrel poop in the grass and proceeds to eat it. He also hates Going Potty outside because of the colder temperatures. I personally hate taking him outside, because he gets coverd in vegetation and dirty and gets it everywhere, and eventually just ends up Going Potty anyways. Not to mention I have to go through the screened porch just to let him out.

Currently, he won't separate from me or my wife when he needs to Go Potty, so he'll just do it on the floor wherever we're at. If there is a Puppy Pad nearby, he might use it, but, I ultimately want him to be able to have some initiative to go to a "potty area"...I've recently discoverd he likes pooping on the garage floor. So I'm thinking of putting a doggy-door from the kitchen door that goes to the garage, and permenantly having him Go Potty on either a potty patch or something else in the garage. Please state your opinions on this, but I have a few questions concerning this:

Is this a viable permenant solution? If so, is a potty patch the way to go, or a giant pooping tray with kitty litter?

Do you think this could be detrimental to his training of not Going Potty outside?

Any alternate suggestions?

How can I get him to actually go to his "Potty Area" and separate from us when he needs to Go Potty? Or does this come with age?


Thank you all

[KazzyK810]

I'm hoping I'm just reading this wrong.

I hope you aren't crating him for 9 hours a day at 11 weeks old? And I hope you aren't taking him outside where he can eat rabbit & squirrel poop before his series of puppy shots & rabies are completed?

I'd recommend getting an x-pen (playpen) setup with an area for a bed & toys at one end and a potty pad area at the other.

I had a playpen for ZoE with removeable panels. When I first got her I had it very small so her pee pad and her bed just fit in there. She'd lay on her bed and go potty on her pad and I'd praise her like crazy and give her a treat each time she did. I would only take her out to play after she had gone potty, so I knew I had some time to play with her where she wouldn't need to pee.

I then added more panels to her playpen so she had more room. I still praised & treated whenever she went on her potty pads. The next step was opening up the side of the playpen, while blocking off the entrance to the room it was in, so she only had one room to roam. Still praising & treating everytime she went potty on her pads. Then she got the run of a couple of rooms I could block off, then finally the run of the house.

You basically have to create the situation that he will be successful in and then praise & treat to reinforce it is what you want. Be consistent in this and baring any physical problems, he should potty-train fairly quickly. Yorkies are smart and they want to please their owner.

ZoE was fully potty trained by 12 weeks. It took me another month or two to build up my confidence in her to give her the run of the house. She's now 1 year old and hasn't had any accidents at all since she was about 10 weeks old.

[sepulchralx]

Thanks for the reply... The vet recommended crating him, even at this early age... I'm surprised you're stating the opposite.. I have a 3ft by 4ft crate i can put him in that will fit a potty pad... Should I use this?


What about nighttimes? Newton loves sleeping in our bed with us.. and if we get up at midnight and 2am, he'll Go Potty on whatever we set him down on (puppy pad)

- DO you recommend him sleeping with us at this early age?
- Do you recommend providing him with a doggy step so he can get down from the bed to go to his potty pad?


Like I said, I am a newbie, so all advice is extremely valuable to me


Edit: also, about him being alone 9hrs a day, I know its not recommended, but is this a very bad thing if crated properly?

[rubymoon2072]

that is just a lonely long time for a baby to be alone. just my opinion. do you have a puppy daycare he could go to during ur work day?

[KazzyK810]

Originally Posted by sepulchralx

Thanks for the reply... The vet recommended crating him, even at this early age... I'm surprised you're stating the opposite.. I have a 3ft by 4ft crate i can put him in that will fit a potty pad... Should I use this?


What about nighttimes? Newton loves sleeping in our bed with us.. and if we get up at midnight and 2am, he'll Go Potty on whatever we set him down on (puppy pad)

- DO you recommend him sleeping with us at this early age?
- Do you recommend providing him with a doggy step so he can get down from the bed to go to his potty pad?


Like I said, I am a newbie, so all advice is extremely valuable to me


Edit: also, about him being alone 9hrs a day, I know its not recommended, but is this a very bad thing if crated properly?

I guess, I don't see the need for crate training if you are training to a potty pad, which is readily available to the pup. Especially in your case where you are gone for 9hours. It's not reasonable to expect a young puppy to hold it that long, so he'll end up soiling his crate, which completely defeats the intent behind crate training.

If you don't have a playpen an overly large crate could be used as a playpen (my friend does this with her chihuahuas and it works great for her).

As to your pup sleeping with you, that's a personal decision. If you're fine with your pup sleeping with you, go for it. ZoE was sleeping with me 3 days after I got her and has been there ever since. I did wake up every few hours for the first few weeks I had her and took her to her pads. She's now a year old and still wakes me up about 3am to go pee...but she's never gone in my bed, so I'm fine with that.

While 9 hours is a long time, as long as he's a healthy pup of decent size (not an extremely tiny yorkie) and he has access to food & water while you're gone, he should be fine. That's why the playpen area (or confining to a small room or hallway) works so well. Newton would have all he needs, a bed, potty area, food, water. He might like it too if you left an old shirt of yours you've worn with him so it smells like you...kind of like a comfort blanket

Congratulations on the new puppy! You need to post photos so we can meet Newton!

[ritapatt]

Ziva( now 2 1/2) had a hard time potty training, seems like she has a very small bladder, she got good at the potty pads in the house but we had to have them everywhere. I put an upside down rubbermaid tote cover w/ newspaper out in the garage- and Bingo! she liked it, so we just had to open the garage door like 10 times a day (a doggy door would be great but DH says no) Our new pup is training outside but also potties in the garage if she can't make it all the way out to the side yard.

[courtney1121]

The garage sounds like a good idea. You'd actually be surprised how many people on this forum don't take their dogs outside to potty. They actually do indoor potty training. That's what we are doing with ours because we don't have a fenced in yard and the neighborhood is kind of bad. You could always try that route too. I don't see anything wrong with that.

[sepulchralx]

Thank you, attached should be his picture

I wanted to name him after one of the founding fathers of engineering, I didn't like Bernouli, so i went with Newton after Isaac Newton (founder of calculus and the fundamental laws of physics)

Heidi (my wife) says it reminds her of the fig newton cookies


Click picture to make bigger

[sepulchralx]

Another picture

[Joyce Adams]

aaw, Newton is such a cutie,,don't ya just love those cute little faces?

[courtney1121]

oh my he is so adorable!!!!! i just wanna kiss that little face!!!

[Jennyms319]

Oh my!!! Newton is so cute!!! Congrats!

Please keep us updated on your situation. I am considering a yorkie puppy in the future and also will be gone from him/her during the day so I would really like to know how everything goes. You will find so much helpful information on this site. Good luck!

[KazzyK810]

Omgosh...what a lil cutie. Newton is adorable!!!


My son is a mechanical engineering student at Western Michigan University! And that is yet another reason I love having a yorkie trained to potty pads. Once they have the pad thing down, they will go on them anywhere. I take ZoE across state to visit my son and I put the pads down in his dorm room and she'd use them...now he's in an apartment and same thing..wherever I put the pads is where she goes. I've put them down in a friends bathroom, my parent's kitchen, the trunk of my car, etc. and she will go on them. It is great for traveling anywhere with your pup.

[Taryn0405]

Oh my goodness! That face!

Makes me want another puppy!

[Jennyms319]

Originally Posted by KazzyK810

Omgosh...what a lil cutie. Newton is adorable!!!


My son is a mechanical engineering student at Western Michigan University! And that is yet another reason I love having a yorkie trained to potty pads. Once they have the pad thing down, they will go on them anywhere. I take ZoE across state to visit my son and I put the pads down in his dorm room and she'd use them...now he's in an apartment and same thing..wherever I put the pads is where she goes. I've put them down in a friends bathroom, my parent's kitchen, the trunk of my car, etc. and she will go on them. It is great for traveling anywhere with your pup.

LOL The trunk ..... now thats a great idea!! I will have to remember that one!!