First time puppy owner - crate questions

[traderjodie]

Hi everyone,

We have an 8 week old cockapoo puppy and I now realize that I don't understand the crate/house training ideas as well as I thought. I am fully committed to positive only training (worked with our parakeet!) and I understand that getting him acclimated to the crate could take a while. What do I do about "Potty" before he is crate trained? I am home a lot but cant be with him every second. I have also read that if he has any accidents in the house it sets us up for future problems and I am supposed to make sure that never happens? How is that possible if I am slow and gentle with the crate training??

Do I keep him in a room filled with pads while we first work on the crate training or will that just teach him to pee on pads?

Thanks so much for any suggestions you can give me!

-Jodie

[Ari_RR]

My 2 cents - these are 2 separate things, potty training and cate training.

Other will point you in the right direction on the crate business.

As for how to prevent accidents inside - to me, the only way is to take him out very often, so he only pees and poops outside.
This means a lot of trips during the day... And during the night.
When our boy was a baby, I slept downstairs on the couch, while he was in his crate, so I could wake up whenever he made a noise, grab him and run outside. Worked perfectly, even if I am still trying to recover for sleep depravation back then

Pads and all that - I am sure it has a place.... If you live in a high rise appartment, for example, where going outside is an event (corridors, elevators, etc) - then perhaps pads are worth considering. But if it's easy for you to get him outside - I wouldn't bother.

Cheers

[Nettle]

You can be with him nearly every second like you would with a human baby. You know to take him out after he has eaten or drunk, played, woken up, or when he gets that pensive look. Start with every half hour, then extend the time as you get to know his needs better. Reward lavishly with every success. Commit to this and you will have a potty-trained puppy very quickly, though as much of it will be due to your vigilance as to the puppy getting the idea. I have potty-trained all my puppies that way, and can count on the fingers of one hand the times each puppy has not made it outside in time.

I'll let someone else talk to you about crates, but that's potty-training. Don't use pads - they just teach your pup to pee on carpets and soft furnishings.

[traderjodie]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the replies. Let me try to explain my situation a little better. I work from home so I am here most of the time. But I still need to work sometimes and that means concentrating on the work and not having eyes on the puppy for brief periods. I may be on a conferance call or teaching a webinar for an hour at a time and I can't jump up to take him out even if I notice his signals. I have children who sometimes need to be taken to or picked up from activities. I need to go to the supermarket or run errands or clean the house or shower. I could easily have Milo with me in the bathroom while I shower but I can't imagine being able to scoop him up and run him outside.

When I was preparing to bring him home, I read a lot about house training and all the books suggested that an 8 week old puppy can be safely crated for these short periods of time (up to about an hour). The problem is that I don't want to just shove him in a crate and let him get used to it. That is the method recommended by my vet and the breeder and a lot of books but it feels wrong to me. I would much rather give him the time to get acclimated and adjusted before I lock him in there. I just don't know what to do in the meantime.

Thanks everyone!
Jodie

[JudyN]

How is he with the crate at the moment? If he's not happy being shut in there and left alone now, I think I'd ditch the idea of using the crate for toilet training. Remember that it's only relatively recently that crates have become a thing.

I wouldn't worry too much about the odd accident. Some guides imply that he only has to wee on the floor once and it's a total disaster. I didn't use a crate, I tried to take my pup out as often as I could, but I still spent a fair amount of time cleaning up puddles and the occasional poo. Despite that, in just a few weeks he was completely reliable. For the first few weeks I slept downstairs with him (long story, but he ended up in our bedroom) and I spread newspapers all over the floor at bedtime. It's not what we would recommend on this forum, and I'm sure it took longer than if we'd put in the effort to have no accidents, but it meant I got some sleep and wasn't completely run ragged.

[traderjodie]

Thanks Judy!

You addressed one of my main concerns. One of my books says that even ONE accident in the house is a DISASTER! Well, if that is true we are in real trouble. Milo is not happy being locked in the crate even for a short amount of time. I think its worthwhile to acclimate him to it, but it will be a slow process. In the meanwhile, I think I will have to do what you did....a room or pen lined with paper and hope for the best. If it takes longer, I'm fine with that. I really can't think of any other solution.

-Jodie

[Erica]

You really can progress pretty quickly with crate training if your dog doesn't dislike the crate! Don't be afraid to take bigger steps if it's going well. While at first you want to do one second, then two seconds, then three seconds, you can push to five, then ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty five, a minute...heck, if you can get your pup interested in a frozen kong, you're likely going to be able to go for fifteen minutes! And I'm just thinking of when puppy is awake. It's pretty easy to get a puppy to sleep happily in a crate, and even young puppies will nap for a couple hours. What kind of training are you doing with the crate? Maybe we can recommend the next steps for you to take specifically

And while you don't want to have too many accidents in the house, a few here or there aren't going to ruin the dog for life! All the puppies I've helped raise have had accidents in the house, and only a couple are only partially house trained as adults...but that is owed more to the fact that the owners got two puppies at a time, which is a horrible idea, 0/10, would not recommend, because it's really difficult to do any training, let alone house training! If you can get 19/20 potties outside, you're doing well, I'd say! (Eventually you'll aim for a better ratio, but the occasional mistake is not the end of the world )

[JudyN]

TOne of my books says that even ONE accident in the house is a DISASTER!

Would this be Ian Dunbar? He is good, but I found him overly military in his approach and I'm too much of a hippie to get on with him

If you use newspaper it's possible you won't be able to leave newspapers or magazines lying around on the floor for some time. Then again, when I was young a lot of puppies were sold 'paper trained' and presumably somehow managed to grow out of it.

[AliceGrimm]

I am curious (while parts of it have been stated and it probably isn't recommended) can you do crate training and run the puppy to the restroom as much as possible to do potty training. And for the moments you are not home (nor anyone in your household), which would only be a max of four hours, could you put the puppy in a play area with a crate and a potty pad/newspaper.. soil in a liter box, for the puppy to have a bathroom area?

I feel it would help set the puppy up for success. And as the puppy is able to hold it more, I think it could be phased out. Would this work?