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TO CRATE OR NOT TOO?


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GingerTheTzu

Hi all. I am hoping I can get some advice on how to house train our new puppy Ginger. I keep reading different ways to house train and I'm not sure how to go about it. I get every dog and situation is different but I want to make sure I am at least setting her up for success. I purchased a 24" crate for Ginger and it comes with a divider. The reason I got one that was bigger was so that she will be able to use it as she grows. At full grown I am hoping it will still be plenty big enough for her. I am hoping to have her crate trained by the time she is at least 1. At the moment since she is 9 weeks old I have her crate inside a 6 panel play yard. I have the play yard set up as a rectangle. I have her crate on one end and her puppy pad holder on the other end. In the middle is empty space where she can lay down or play. She has been doing really well with peeing on the puppy pad. Pooping has been another issue. She uses the puppy pad sometimes and other times she messes on the floor. Yesterday I came home to find poop in her crate. I had taken her crate pad/bed out to wash so the inside of the crate was empty with just the tray and she had pooped in there. I put the bed back in this morning and when i got home she had pooped on the floor but peed twice on her pad. We have had her for one week and one day. So far she has only pooped outside twice. I take her out constantly when im home and she never goes. I'm trying to get her on a feeding and pooping schedule but so far its not working. I thought I was suppose to take her out right after she eats or at least 20 min after but I have noticed she doesn't poop until hours after she eats. I'm only feeding her in the afternoon at around 3:30 once i'm home and she won't poop until the next day usually while i'm at work. I come home to find poop so i have no idea what time she is pooping. Some days she does have a little surprise for me in the mornings but lately she hasn't. I've tried feeding her in the morning before work as well but all she wants is to play and not eat. I do leave water out constantly for her. So i guess here are my questions….

1. Should i be worried that she doesn't poop right away? is this common?

2. Should i be fully crating her a this age instead of leaving her loose in her play yard with access to water and puppy pad? I do want to eventually only crate her and not have her use her puppy pad at all. I feel like i might just confuse her if i'm letting her pee in the house on a pad. i'm gone from 8am to about 2 or 3pm so i don't know if she should be with out water for that long and also i don't know is she can hold her urine for that long if i were to fully crate her? Help please!!!

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I am not much help with question 2 since I never used pee pads, but I also do not work so I didn't have to worry about leaving him for too long. I can see how it could be confusing for a pup to pee and poop inside during the day and outside in the afternoon, but I'm sure it's possible just may take longer. I'm sure others will have advise for that. As for the first question, Parker would take hours to poop after eating when I first got him. Eventually he started on a more reliable schedule. He still doesn't usually poop right after eating, but usually within an hour I would say. I do use a crate when I leave and luckily he loves his crate. He lays down and sleeps as soon as he gets in there. So far the longest I have left him in the crate is 3 hours and he has been fine the whole time. When he was about 10/11 weeks old he did poop in his crate a few times, but now he has had no accidents.

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GingerTheTzu

thank you for the reply. I'm hoping others will chime in as well. I'm confused as to what is the best way on how to train her.

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Sunlite

I've crate trained 2 of my 3. If you leave continuous access to food and water you will have a tougher time potty training. I have found in my experience, you cant trust a Tzu to be reliable in potty training for at least a year. Also a young puppy can not be expected to hold it longer than 1 hr more than how old the are meaning a 2 month old can not hold it longer than 3 hrs. That being said, if you cant be there or have someone take her out for you, please dont confine her to just the crate at this time and use the pen area with the crate so she'll be comfortable with the crate.

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GingerTheTzu

I've crate trained 2 of my 3. If you leave continuous access to food and water you will have a tougher time potty training. I have found in my experience, you cant trust a Tzu to be reliable in potty training for at least a year. Also a young puppy can not be expected to hold it longer than 1 hr more than how old the are meaning a 2 month old can not hold it longer than 3 hrs. That being said, if you cant be there or have someone take her out for you, please dont confine her to just the crate at this time and use the pen area with the crate so she'll be comfortable with the crate.

thanks for that info. so should i not leave water out for her all day? The only reason i do is because she has access to the puppy pads and i heard puppies should have unlimited access to water. is that wrong? at what age is it normally recommended to fully crate? i was thinking about 6 or 7 months or should it be sooner?

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Sunlite

She is very young, leave the water for now but eventually she can be several hours without it. You can start closing her in the crate now for short periods of time so she gets used to it if you plan on doing so eventually. I just cant see locking her up for long periods at this young age.

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Ginger is such a young baby, she needs structure to learn what you want her to do. I do not believe in with-holding water from any dog at any age, but with all the freedom she is having she has NO idea what you expect. When training, you have to decide on a method and then stick with it...there are many, and they all require time, commitment and sometimes tough-love on your part. NILF.

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Sorry, the only advice I have is to be really consistent bringing her outside when you are home. I got my pup in the spring when my kids were home from school so they could help with potty training, and because I work from home I am also able to bring Mr. T out regularly during the day. At first I brought him out every 1-1.5 hrs. Now I bring him out every 1.5-2 hrs. still and he is 5.5 mths. old. He can go longer, but I don't like to push it much past 2 hrs. unless he's sleeping. At this point he's still having an accident about once every 2-4 weeks, but I don't think that's bad, and he seems to finally be going to the top of the steps to let me know when he has to go out, though not consistently still, so I still go by the rough 2 hr. guideline if he doesn't tell me he has to go out. I've never used pee pads with him so don't have advice on that.

With crate training, I only used the crate at night until Mr. T was reliable in the house. He hated the crate. He would go in it to have a treat or his Kong if the door was open, but no matter how lovely I made it seem, he did not want to be in there with the door closed. If I did work outside the home I'd probably do a setup like yours and just hope the pup got the hang of peeing and pooping on the pad. I think more than a few hours is too long for a small pup to be crated. Another option would be if you had a really helpful neighbor or friend who lived close who could come by midday to let your pup out of the crate. Then you could keep the crate door closed and hopefully your pup wouldn't soil in the crate and then would be eager and quick to pee/poop when taken out.

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Pawz4me

I think it's not unusual for puppies to be erratic in their pooping. They usually get more on a schedule as they get older and their digestive tracts mature.

I trained Yogi to both use wee wee pads and to go outside. But my situation is a lot different than yours. I'm home most of the time, and we have another dog who does his business exclusively outside. So when Yogi was a little pup and had trouble holding it for more than five minutes I gave in and put a pad down. He took to that within a few days. But he also went outside regularly with our older dog, and caught on to the idea of doing his business outside from him. So he does both -- he'll use the wee wee pad in bad weather, when we're gone, or when we're at home and he needs to go and I'm busy doing other things. He doesn't often ask to go outside unless the weather is really, really nice. But he'll do his business outside several times a day when I take our older dog out. He's never seemed confused by it, nor did our other dog ever think the wee wee pad was for him. Overall I'm very glad Yogi knows how to use the wee wee pads because it's so convenient in bad weather or when we need to be away from home for awhile.

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I thought I was suppose to take her out right after she eats or at least 20 min after but I have noticed she doesn't poop until hours after she eats. I'm only feeding her in the afternoon at around 3:30 once i'm home and she won't poop until the next day usually while i'm at work. I come home to find poop so i have no idea what time she is pooping. Some days she does have a little surprise for me in the mornings but lately she hasn't. I've tried feeding her in the morning before work as well but all she wants is to play and not eat. I do leave water out constantly for her. So i guess here are my questions….

I'm concerned about the above statement that you're "only feeding her in the afternoon".

If she's just 9 weeks old, she should be fed 3--4 times every day, unless you're free-feeding her? She should also have water available at all times, particularly if you're free-feeding her dry kibble.

Sorry for my confusion!

If Ginger is only getting one meal a day, that could be the reason she isn't pooping very often.

I'm just concerned about your statement. Please clarify.

Hugs!

Vicki

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GingerTheTzu

Thanks for all the feedback. Since she is so young I will leave her puppy pads out until I notice she can hold it for longer periods of time and I will hold off on fully crating her. She does have access to water all day while I'm away. As far as the feeding goes the first few days she was home I was free feeding her but she didn't want to eat unless I was there watching her. She would only eat while I was in the room. So I stopped the free feeding to get her more on a routine and I have tried feeding her in the mornings and when I get home. Today was the first day she actually ate in the morning. Normally in the mornings she just wants to play and ignores her food. She is doing a lot better though. This morning when I woke up she had a nice little surprise for me on her puppy pad.

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GingerTheTzu

Should I leave her access to food at all times at this age? I thought putting her on a routine schedule would work better? so glad to have found this site. So many useful resources and information.

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Pawz4me

She doesn't need access to food at all times, but she does need to be eating three or four times a day. Young puppies are just like babies -- they need small, frequent feedings.

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If you can't feed her three or four times a day at least for the next month, I would (personally) leave dry food down for her to nibble on should she get hungry when you're not there.

You most likely will have more messes to clean up, but it's for her health and good start on life. Once she gets a little older, then you can start giving her larger meals at a time and then work harder on the potty training.

She's just a little baby at 9 weeks old.

Vicki

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GingerTheTzu

Sounds great, I will start leaving her food out for the next month or so and see how she does. Thanks again :)

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I agree that Ginger needs food available if you are gone all day. I feed newly-weaned (usually around 8 week) puppies 4 times a day, down to 3 times a day at 12 weeks and then twice daily at 16 weeks. Their tummies are not very big before that so they need to eat frequently or you can have issues with low blood sugar.

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I finally let Lucey roam for free at 6 months. She has been toilet trained and accident free for 3 weeks before then.

I got lucey at 12 weeks and I gave up on the crate training after 1.5 weeks, I really just couldn't get up enough times at night to avoid her peeing inside the crate. Instead, she was playpen trained, I confined her to the playpen after she ate and when I was not home and at night. I put the wee pad and wee pad holder inside the playpen. The playpen is inside my big bathroom. At about 16 weeks, she was then confined to the bathroom. The funny thing is I got her in the summer so she really loves the bathroom because it's colder in there.

I work from 10a - 5p. The thing that really helped for me was doing toilet training first thing in the AM and at night. I would allow at least 2-3 hours after the breakfast where I watched her constantly and led her to the wee pad when she started circling or even before, pointing to the wee pad telling her to pee. At night, I did the same thing. Literally I would sit in the bathroom with my laptop after her dinner, watching her inside the playpen, and she didn't get to get out until she peed and pooped. And it may take 2-3 hours.

I live in manhattan in a high-rise so she didn't get to go out until she had all her shots and by that time she was so used to the wee pad that she wouldn't go outside. And like she really would NOT! One time i took her out to central park from 11a until 8p and she didn't go at all. No pee and no poop for 9 hours. That was around 16 weeks. I don't know how she held it in. So I gave up in going outside too. Sometime she does poop outside on our walks but she has never peed!

She used to have 1 accidents at night, so I did limit her water from 9p until 8a. But only for a few days until she gets used to the idea of not drinking at night and not having accidents. Now at 7 months, I found that she doesn't even pee at night.

My only issue with her now is that when I'm not home, sometime she play with her poop and ate it. But only sometimes. I think to show she is lonely:( But when I'm home, she is pretty good. But this is a problem for another thread :)

Oh and I do find that she prefers going on the wee pad on wee pad holder. When I stopped using the wee pad holder, and just put the pad on the floor, she didn't like it and started having accident. She is picky!

And when I do caught her having accidents, I yelled at her and ignored her for 15 mins.

Hope this helps!

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You're certainly not alone with the poop problem! Mine do all go outside but I have one that will pick it up and bring it back inside and "play" with it!

YUCKY!

Vicki

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GingerTheTzu

wow so funny that you mention the poop eating thing. I caught Ginger licking her little terd. I freaked when i saw her do that, and immediately scooped her up and away from it. I told my husband about it and he was horrified. I suspect she's been eating some of her poop or at least licking it. But if she is, she's not eating it all cause i have found plenty in her play pen kennel area. such a nasty little habit ewww

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Hmmm, maybe it has something to do with her name??? (ie: GingerSnap)! (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

I've even tried spraying them with Apple Bitter and leaving them. That actually worked pretty good, but it's difficult to get them sprayed in time. Plus, it's just easier to pick them up if you're going to go to the trouble to spray them!

I know it's Yucky, but try not to worry too much about it.

Vicki

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when you catch her, you need to yell at her. IT does work, she needs to know you're not happy when she does that. Lucey never do it when i'm around or when i'm watching grrrrr only when i leave her home alone for a long time. i really think she does it to punish me hahaha

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