[Laurenkristenn]

I have an adorable puppy who is 100% mutt named Milo. He is 8 months old and is SO stubborn (but the happiest little guy you'll ever meet).

Potty training has been a battle. At the beginning he refused to go outside, and would pee in his crate at night. I'm thankful that with lots of work - we have gotten past that.

But I believe I made a mistake with pad training him in the beginning because now he won't hold it when he needs to go or has a slight urge (even if it's barely a dribble of pee).

My dilemma: My boyfriend and I both work 8:30 am -6 pm. We used to keep him confined to the kitchen so if he had an accident, it wouldn't be a huge issue. Since then, he's grown into a ninja dog that can't be confined. He now gets free range of the house and we always come home to a poop accident in the hall or living room. Does anyone have experience with crating a pup for ~8 hours a day? I know he sleeps 90% of the time while we are gone anyways, but I just feel so guilty keeping him cooped up like that. Does anyone know of any other options to get him to hold it? I know he's capable of doing so... he's just stubborn.

 

[Thisisme19]

I have an adorable puppy who is 100% mutt named Milo. He is 8 months old and is SO stubborn (but the happiest little guy you'll ever meet).

Potty training has been a battle. At the beginning he refused to go outside, and would pee in his crate at night. I'm thankful that with lots of work - we have gotten past that.

But I believe I made a mistake with pad training him in the beginning because now he won't hold it when he needs to go or has a slight urge (even if it's barely a dribble of pee).

My dilemma: My boyfriend and I both work 8:30 am -6 pm. We used to keep him confined to the kitchen so if he had an accident, it wouldn't be a huge issue. Since then, he's grown into a ninja dog that can't be confined. He now gets free range of the house and we always come home to a poop accident in the hall or living room. Does anyone have experience with crating a pup for ~8 hours a day? I know he sleeps 90% of the time while we are gone anyways, but I just feel so guilty keeping him cooped up like that. Does anyone know of any other options to get him to hold it? I know he's capable of doing so... he's just stubborn.

I know a lot of the time it seems like pups have the same thought process as we do, but your little guy isn't being stubborn. He just hasn't gotten the concept that going in the house is off limits yet. I would definitely not keep him crated for more than 4 hours. Also you're talking about asking a puppy to hold it for almost 10 hours. That's a long time, and that's if you're including travel time in your work hours. Just keeping him confined if he simply can't hold it that long isn't going to help get him potty trained. The big secret to potty training is to get them to go where you want them to go as consistently as possible and then show them how freakin happy that makes you. Even if he didn't escape his kitchen confines letting him have accidents in there is setting you back.

The best course of action, if you can swing it, would be to come home (or get a friend or dog walker to come by) at lunch and give him a break in the middle of the day. I would either confine him to a room or a play pen (if he's a jumper you can get one with a roof) so he has some room to move and play a bit. And you can ease him out to free reign again after you're 100% confident he's potty trained. It'll probably take him a couple weeks of someone consistently letting him out at lunch and giving tons of praise when he goes before he grasps the concept that he should only be going outside. After he's gone 2-3 months accident free being confined and being let out at lunch you can increase his freedom a week or 2 at a time, baby gates will be your friend here. While dogs are generally hardwired to not want to potty where they eat and sleep, 1 side of the house to the other is a whole different world for them, especially a small dog. That's why you want to increase his freedom gradually. If you increase and he goes potty in the newly available space, take that space away again for another week or 2 then try again.

If you can't swing coming home or having someone let him out at lunch I think I would set him up an indoor potty area. You'll need to train him to use the indoor area so you'll need to go into that option with the full realization that he might always need to have an indoor potty, training him out of it once he's reliably going outside might not be possible or super difficult.

Hope that helps somewhat!

 

[amaryllis]

You should probably take him to the vet first. An 8 month old dog should be able to hold it, what you're describing sounds like a UTI.