Question:
Hello all! My boyfriend and I just brought home the newest addition to our family...a 9 week old Shih Tzu. He is adorable and he is doing very well. At the breeder, he was being paper trained along with his brothers and sisters. Now that we have him home we have laid out paper in our kitchen and have a crate for him as well. We would like to crate train him and ultimately have him doing his business outside.

Have any of you crate trained your puppies and if so, how did you go about doing it? Did you start with paper and then gradually move them to the outdoors, or did you start taking him/her outside at regular intervals and let them go on the paper if they had an emergency when you weren't around?

Also how long did you keep your puppy confined to the crate at any given time? We both work during the day and are wondering how long he can be safely kept in the crate?

Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Genie


Answer:
I crate trained my dog as soon as we got home. We made sure we took her out often, and as soon as it looked like she was ready to have an accedent we would tell her "outside" and open the door (she would run out and do her buisness). I would say if you are both at work all day you should get a crate that is big enough for her to roam in. even better would be a crate with a "pen" in front of it, that way the puppy can still move and you can put paper down and she can do he buisness if she cant hold it. I never trained her on paper, she only went there if she couldent make it outside. I have a friend that tried the paper trail outside and still (the dog is now 2) has accedents inside the house.


Answer:
I wouldn't do the paper-training at all anymore.. it's different when you have a whole litter of puppies to deal with.. and it just causes a dependency on it.. if you eventually want him outside, then start immediately.
I would get a crate that is right for his size when full grown (so you don't have to get another one later).. you can barricade part of it now to make it smaller and open it up full size when he's full grown. If it's a wire crate put a piece of board inside and fasten it to the wire bars..
Puppies under 6 months shouldn't be in a crate longer than 3-4 hours.. is there anyway that you or your boyfriend could come home 1/2 way thru your workday to let the puppy out for a pee break? If not, you could hire a neighbor/friend or even hire a pet sitting service to pop in once a day..
When you are home, be very aware of his actions.. they usually circle before they do their 'thing'.. or they go off into another room and you only discover the accident later.. which is too late. You need to catch them before they do it.. so restrict their access to other rooms.. shut bedroom doors and keep the puppy with you at all times so you'll catch it.. even if you have to tie them to you with a leash around your waist.
Write down the time they 'go' every day and that'll determine your schedule. Keep your feeding schedule the same everday.. even on the weekend.. otherwise it will confuse him.. (he doesn't know its the weekend & doesn't care).. Most importantly, when he does go outside.. praise, praise, praise! Make a huge deal of it even if you look like an idiot to your neighbors..


Answer:
Thanks very much for your response. That is what we will be working on. We left him in his crate last night and he made very little crying noises which was a welcome change from the last couple of nights. We tried to get him to go to the bathroom before bedtime with no success and the next time we went down to check on him he had soiled his crate both ways. We took him outside first thing this morning to go pee, no success and we tried once more before leaving to go to work, still no pee pee. We also gave him the paper option, but he didn't want any part of that this morning.

Part of getting him to go outside will be getting him more comfortable with his leash and collar and/or harness. He seems to like the harness more, he doesn't try to escape from it when we put it on him.

Thanks again for your advice and if you have any more advice from your experiences we'd love to hear it.

Genie


Answer:
Another thing I found that is great, is to let the puppy outside everytime you let him out of his crate. My dog goes strainght to the back door as soon as you open the door to her crate. She had only one accident in her crate and that was the first day we brought her home, after that it was a piece of cake. We never had the whinning problem at night because they started crate training all the puppies the week before they were to go to their new homes. They key is to be constant in taking him outside and soon he will get the hang of it.


Answer:
Thanks for your advice. My boyfriend will be able to go home at lunch to let the puppy out so that his little bladder won't have to wait so long for relief. We are going to work on having him go outside first thing in the morning when we get up, give him some food and water, then let him out once again before leaving for work, out at lunch time, and out again right when we get home from work, then again when going to bed. We have read that it may take up to 6 months before the puppy to get the hang of being house trained. Right now he doesn't like to be outside for long as he gets cold within about 5 minutes. We know that it will change and we are being patient and giving him lots of praise when he eliminates in the appropriate location.

Genie


Answer:
if he isnt used to the leash and collar, try leaving it on him when you are home to supervise, let him drag it around the house, eventually he will forget it is even there and may be more receptive when you put it on him to go outside


Answer:
Thanks. We will give that a try to help him get used to the leash.

Genie


Answer:
Genie, it sounds like you have a great plan in place. Good luck with the housebreaking and keep us posted.

Also, we might enjoy some pictures of your furball.


Answer:
Here is a picture of our little bundle of joy!