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Crate Training questions
We adopted a 14 week old puppy from a shelter three days ago, and we are in the process of crate training her. She's actually been quite good so far. I generally wait until she is tired and starting to nap and then get her to go in with some treats. Sometimes she whines for 15 minutes or so, but then settles in and usually sleeps or chews on a toy.
Night has been a different story. Most of the info I read and the DVD the shelter gave us says dogs generally won't go to the bathroom in their own crate because they consider it their space. She's been pooping in there every morning, however. My husband and I alternate getting up when she cries, and if she doesn't cry we just do 2 am, 6 am, and 8 am.
I guess I'm just looking for tips on how we might prevent her from going to the bathroom in the crate. Since she isn't house-trained, she doesn't understand yet that going out at 6 is a good time to go if she needs to. I don't mind cleaning up after her, it comes with the puppy territory. But she was spayed 6 days ago and her surgery site isn't completely healed yet. This morning she managed to cover herself in poop before she started crying and woke me up, and it worries me that she might get an infection. I also don't want to reinforce bad bathroom habits.
Re: Crate Training questions
This is Maggie. The shelter had her listed as a Bernese Mountain Dog mix, but a few people have told me she looks a lot like a Border Collie.
We are crate training our 13 week old puppy too. She's only pooped in the crate one time in a month, the first day she went in the crate while we went to work (lucky us!)
How big is the crate? It should just be big enough for her to move around a little, not huge- some of the bigger ones come with a divider that you move as they grow older. When are you feeding her last? Mine's poops are pretty close to when she eats, and she last eats around 630 pm so she poops at night but then not again until the morning. Are you gving her enough time at night to poop before going in the crate?
I didn't know that they could get spayed that young. Our vet told us 6-8 months old and the rescue gives us till 6 months old.
make sure her crate isn't too big for her and that will help prevent her from eliminating in her crate. also, you may want to hold off on putting any type of bedding in her crate until she's housebroke, so that it doesn't act like a diaper and pull the moisture away if she urinates.
my FI and I have our puppy on a strict schedule with food, only first thing in the morning, and at 5:30-6:30pm when we get home from work. this way he will have gone to the bathroom prior to his bedtime (usually around 10). when our pup was younger we would take his water away around 8:30pm also, that way he would go outside once more before bedtime, this also eliminated his need to get up in the middle of the night.
last suggestion, put some type of covering on the crate (not sure if you have a plastic or wire) but putting a covering over the crate can make the space more den-like for her and make her more comfortable.
Good Luck!
Thank you both! Her crate is probably a bit big. The shelter rents crates for free for the first 3 months you have the dog and I remember the woman at the front desk saying she'd give me one that was a little bigger so Maggie could use it for awhile. It isn't adjustable so I just put a cardboard box in there to take up some of the space. Hopefully she won't chew on it, otherwise I'll have to find plan B.
I did use a towel as bedding the first night, but I read that it might encourage dogs to use the crate as a bathroom when they were young, so I took that out. I'll throw a sheet over the crate to create that "den" experience instead.
I think we definitely need to be stricter about food times. She will only eat a very little at a time before wandering off, so I've been feeding her three times a day. I'm probably just encouraging her to graze, so maybe if I stick to two, she'll eat more when she has the chance.
I looked into the spaying age (just on the aspca website) and it looks like 8 weeks to 6 months is ok, and shelters especially tend to spay early so they can be adopted out already sterilized. But it seems there is some controversy about whether spaying that early is healthy, so I don't know MrsD!