 Barked: Wed May 30, '12 8:24am PST |
 | |  | | That breeder's advice wasn't helpful. It's never a good idea to encourage a dog to potty inside their crate. That's counter-productive. The whole reason why crate-training works so well for potty training is because a dog won't naturally soil its den, which is what the crate is supposed to be for the pup=a safe den-like place. That's why the crate is only supposed to be big enough for the dog to turn around and lay down in, so they won't soil in it, plus dens are naturally that small. It often helps to put a crate cover on three sides, so the pup feels more secure.
A much better recommendation is to put your dog's correctly sized crate with the door open inside an ex-pen and lay the pee pads the farthest away from the crate opening as you can. Or fill that Xpen area with pads, and gradually get down to only having one pad in there. When your pup is more reliable, you can phase out the Xpen and possibly even the crate if you want, and still leave the one pee pad down in the same room. Some of Ian Dunbar's puppy raising books (sorry can't recall which title)have a picture of this type of setup. It's a good idea when people have to be gone for more than 8hrs a day, because your pup can also move around a bit more than just being in the crate. |  |  | |  |
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Good thing I read your post instead of jumping all the way to conclusions.
