[OakleyParentsGSP]

Hello all,

I have a 4 month old GSP, Oakley. Both of Oakleys parents worked for the first month and a half and had a dog sitter come in the middle of the day to let her out of the crate to go to the bathroom. She was crate trained pretty quick, as she wouldn't pee or defecate in her crate and would stop crying pretty quickly. She then got a urinary tract infection and started peeing in the crate because she couldn't hold it anymore. This led to pooping in the crate because she thought it was okay. We had the crate small so that she could only turn around and this led to her being traumatized from sitting in her own pee or poop. My wife is now is home all the time for 3 months until she starts her doctorate. We are hoping we can train Oakley to like her crate again by the time she has to leave the house for school. She would then only be leaving for the couple hours of class and coming home. But at this point Oakley cannot handle even an hour in the crate without going. Please help us with tips. We just got a new crate so she might not associate it with the same thing.


Thank you everyone for your help!

 

[KateBren]

A new crate should help so you are confident that it doesn't smell etc

If she can only last an hour, then I would start there. I would run her out every 45 minutes to catch her before she goes. Hopefully within a day or two, the length of time she can be in there without going will go up, I would just inch up the time slowly. The more success she has, the more it will build on itself.

In the meantime, if you need to go out longer than that, then just gate her somewhere safe or use an exercise pen. It's better if she relieves herself away from where she is resting.

Good luck!

 

[OakleyParentsGSP]

Thanks KateBren. She can definitely hold it for a long time. When she is with us she will hold it for 6 hours easily. She just has very high anxiety when she isn't with us. We will try to use the playpen we have when we go out for longer times until she feels comfortable with the new crate!