[MHDDOG2016]

So the good news is Jasper has never had an accident. We have had him for 4 weeks and he has consistently peed/pooped outside. BUT, I am wondering if I should be stretching out the time to make him learn to hold it longer, now that he is 12 weeks old. Right now, he goes first thing in the morning out of his crate and pees/poos. Then 30-45 minutes later I take him out again b/c he has eaten breakfast. He almost always pees and poos again. At that point he will usually hang out in his 4x4 pen for about 90 minutes at which point we go on a 20-230 walk around the block. He usually pees/poos again. Then he is crated for 2 1/2 hours. Dog walker comes, takes him out and then he is crated again for another two hours until I get home. Once I am home if the afternoons, we are pretty much in the habit for going outside every 45-60 minutes. He has definitely gone longer if he happens to fall asleep in the pen after playing and then as soon as he wakes up I will take him out.

I am wondering if I should try having him wait longer, like 2 hours maybe and see what happens. There are times when he will start barking in his pen and after asking him to sit and lie down, I will get him out and take him right outside and he usually pees right away. But I am not 100% convinced he was asking to go outside, and I am thinking he is conditioned to pee as soon as he hits the grass. I would just like to be able to "hang out" more and not have this feeling that all I do all afternoon is take the dog out.

 

[Dawnben]

If your dog is that successful I would be very careful adding time because the last thing you want is for him to go in the house. Successful house training is all about prevention. I would add 15 minutes to the time and go week by week building up the time. You are doing great.