Shall I carry on with crate?? Don't know what else to do??

[Jennytailia]

Lurked on this section for ages, knew it would only be a matter of days with new pup before I posted.

We have had Ripley for 3 days now, I have been crating her overnight, but she messes it almost as soon as she gets in(I've been down to check her, and then clean up). But then she'll mess it again during the night.

She also howls and yaps so much through the night. I've read you shouldnt go down to them as it re-enforce the behaviour.

I am worried that I don't crate her then she will chew through wires and furniture!!

What shall I do for the best??

Keep persevering, make it as attractive to her as you can - put her favourite toys in, feed her in there, pop her in there intermittently for a few minutes every so often during the day while staying in sight so she learns that it's a good place to be.

I'm guessing she's only a few weeks old in which case she physically won't be able to go through the night without messing.

Are you toilet training, as in teaching her to wee/poo on command? It's probably the most useful thing you will do as you can then send her into the garden to perform just before she goes to bed.

We used to take ours out in the garden as we were going to bed for the night (about 11.30pm - 12am in the early days) and waited until she had wee'd and pooed before putting her in the crate, then we used to get up to her about 6/6:30am and let her out in the garden.

How big is the crate? We had her bedding on one side and covered the other side in newspaper to absorb the accidents (otherwise you have to wash the bedding everyday, ime!).

It doesn't take long for them to be able to go for a few hours without messing (our labs were ok for 6-7 hours by 10 weeks) and it is definitely a far quicker process if you crate them because they don;t like messing their sleeping area. If they have the run of a room they will just find a spot to wee/poo in that's away from their bed.

We ignored any noise that ours made in the night, right from day 1 and she stopped crying very quickly. It can help to have a radio tuned to a talk station (like R4) left on low in the background and a largeish cuddly toy for them to snuggle up with to make them feel less lonely.

Good luck, stick with it, crates make life 1000x easier when you have a pup.

Thanks for replying Lady.

Yes I am teachin her to toilet on command on the word toilet, it's going ok. But I have to watch her like a hawk as she will pee on the floor if I go out the room. I don't shout at her if she does but she dedinatley knows it's wrong or she wouldn't wait.

She will also choose to pee/poo in her crate if I am not watching.

She has held her poo in all day as well so she can do it!

I will try putting on the radio tonight, I may also leave a light on.

What breed is she and how old is she? It more likely to be a nervous reaction if she goes when you leave the room/put her in the crate. You say she's only been with you for 3 days so she won't have settled in and found her confidence yet.

What food is she on and how many meals a day are you giving her? Our pups have always been absolute poo machines - at least one poo for every meal. Not pooing all day doesn't sound right ime. What are her poos like when she does go?

She is a cocker spaniel and she is 11 weeks old, her breeder gave me a week of chudleys but I am going to change it soon.

I left her for half hour yesterday at 10am and she messed her crate.

But so far today there has been no poo!! I am still feeding her 4 meals a day but will cut to 3 soon.

Watching this with interest, as am collecting my new puppy next week and we have the crate ready!
I know the considered wisdom is that dogs don't mess in their crates, but clearly yours (and my sister's lab) seems to be breaking the rule.
But on the bright side, at least it's confined to the crate. If you let him free at night, imagine the scene...!

Keep persevering, you'll get there!

Is the crate small enough for the puppy? It should be just large enough for the pup to lie, get up and turn around. Anything larger encourages them to use part of it as a toilet.

Clean or throw away anything she has soiled on already so that there is no smell of toilet in there.

Don't feel her close to bed time (let's say 4 hours before sleep) and make sure she gets a nice long time in the garden to go to the toilet before you pop her in the crate.

If she cries during the night, go to her, pick her up, don't talk to her, take her out for toilet, pop her back in the crate. Ignore further crying but try her with a blanket over the crate, a chew in the crate or the radio on if she still cries.

Yesterday was a bit of a nightmare day, she held her poo in all day, I could see she was distressed, it got to 10pm and I couldnt watch her anymore so I took her bedding out, put her I'm the crate Amd left her for 10 mins to do a poo, which she did.

I then realised that she is too anxious over pooing and to a certain extent weeing. So I built her an 'extension' on her crate out of the fire guard

Put her bedding at one end and the plastic tray at the other so she can toilet on that in the night.

She did 2 poo's last night on the tray. I have put the tray near the back door today but she has ignored it and wee'd on the floor. Before if she did a wee
On the floor I would call her ne to startle her an then take her outside, but I have stopped this as it was adding to her anxiety.

I am preserving with the crate as she is chewing the furniture already so there is no way I can leave her uncrated. But I am taking it slowly with the toilet training and not hovering around her anymore.

ne name

Persevering

Should have previewed this

Are you taking her outside after every meal and when she wakes up, and staying there with her, and praising her when she does it outside? If you have only had her 3 days, you are largely dealing with whatever toilet patterns were established while she was at the breeder's, and by 11 weeks, she will have built up fairly firm "substrate preferences" - ie got the habit of doing it on the type of surface where she has mostly had to do it up to this point. If the breeder wasn't giving her a lot of opportunity to do things outside, she won't have a clear idea that that is where she should be doing things; it sounds as if the main thing she has learnt so far is to wait until she's alone as much as possible, rather than to aim for a particular place. If she is doing it in the right place even only sometimes, then the situation is less difficult than if she is almost never doing it outside and has effectively learnt toilet training "the wrong way round". I would suggest you spend a lot of time trying to get her to do it in the right place, and if that becomes more established, the accidents will naturally become less frequent. Will she go to the toilet outside if you are not there, or is that not an option?

Thanks your your reply. Yes she will go outside when I am there, if I leave her she will run in and do it. But she has only ever done one poo outside.

Yes I am taking her almost every hour, and have spend most of the time in the garden to establish this, but she wants to go in after a while and I think it adds to her anxiety.

Also I need to come in to see to the children ect.

I do think she has learnt to do it when she is alone and that were some of the anxiety is coming from.

I want her to chill out a bit about the whole thing.

Don't say her name when she wees or poos indoors ever. Her name should just mean pleasant things and should never be used for warning or punishment however mild.

What I would do if possible is get a cup of coffee,a book, a deck chair and go outside with her and stay there - get the kids out as well. Shut the door to the indoors you can take a bit of her bedding out if you like and just stay outside. When she wees and poos treat her like mad (you may have to wait for her to finish or it can put a girl off the job in hand ). You need to get more poos outside. IF she does wee and poo indoors ignore ignore it. If she could be taken outside and then you can clean it up without her hearing your huffing and puffing (which most of use do!).

You do not want to have an anxiety as this obviously will mean the toilet training will take longer.

It is very early days though so let her settle in but do try to give her no opportunity to soil inside if possible.

I have been treating her like mad! And yes it did disturb her at first and I quickly learnt

I will definately stop the huffing and puffing as well!! And I won't startle her or call her name.

I do spend most days outside(mnetting), but it's when I pop in she does it, it's about 50/50 for the wee's.

But she will just literally not poo outside. hopefully she relax soon and not hold on until night anymore.

She poo'd outside!! I am ridiculously happy that she poo'd at all, let alone outside.

It was my hovering that was making her anxious!! I just let her wander outside on her own instead of following her and she went straight away. Woohoo.

She got so much fuss and tasty treats.

I am turning into a proper dog lady

We planned crate training, read up and had everything perfectly ready...or so we thought. I'm not sure if we did things wrong but we couldn't stop our pup poo'ing in her crate and then having to walk through it etc. I think she was just too little to try and hold her toilet overnight. It just wasn't working out at all. So we completely changed tack just a few days in and allowed the crate to be a safe sleeping place but didn't close the door, and paper trained her. It worked brilliantly and within a really short window she was house trained and using the dogflap to take herself outside when she needed to go. Then we got the second pup about 6 weeks later and she trained him for us!

Yes my pup thinks her crate is where she poo's, that's why I have added the tray for her to poo on to get her out of the habit of pooing in her crate, it seems to be working, but I havent put her in the crate without the tray yet so who knows.

She is Definately less anxious about her wee's now, it's still 50/50 whether she goes outside but I think it's going in the right direction.

But poo's are still done at night in her tray.

Jenny, I noticed that my pup didn't like me hovering but wanted me in sight. I got a pee post and stuck that up the end of the garden that I wanted her to go and I don't know if it's luck rather than judgement but she generally goes up that end now. I allways walk to that end and tell her to go wee wees or poo poos and unless she is desperate in the morning tends to go up there behind some bushes as it's a bit more private.