Deficating in crate

[mblackwood23]

Can someone please offer advice or a solution to my training issue. I have a
4 1/2 month old JRT that I am having difficulties crate training. Fortunately he does not pee pr poop in the house and understands to do his business outside when out and about in the house. However, there is a flip side to all of this. The puppy is crated during work hours and during sleep time. During both crating periods he eliminates. The puppy is let out every hour in the evening and will immediately do his business. However, during the night he will eliminate. I have tried many things with no prevail....

1) Waking up in the middle of the night to let him out.. two different results
The puppy either has already gone.
The puppy will go outside and "go". Wake up in the morning and he has gone again.

2) changed dinner time (this was pointless).


Any advice????

[Saje]

He could have dirty puppy syndrome. If he came from a backyard breeder, puppymill or other dirty kennel he has already learned to go where he sleeps. This makes it incredibly difficult to housetrain pups. :( The only thing I can recommend is something you are not going to like. I think your best bet is to get up more frequently during the night to take him out. Every hour or two. And possibly hire a pet sitter to take him out during the day.

[animalcrackers]

Same advice as above. Your pup needs more potty time at night and when you're away at work. He can't hold his bladder that long yet. It might be a bit harder since he's already eliminated in his crate. Mayhaps you purchased him from a pet shop or a BYB, where he learned to go in his crate?

[girlbuffalo1]

How small is the crate? It should be VERY small for a JRT pup--just enough room to turn around and to lay down--is it larger than this?

[mblackwood23]

The crate is tiny. It was made for a cat. It only gives hi enough room to lay and turn.

[tony_hk]

I have same problem when 99 came home. That was entirely because I was not willing to get up in the mid night and was away from home for 10 hours during day time. I tried putting his bed on one side of the cage. And let him eliminate on the otherside. Sometimes it works, but sometimes he eliminated on his bed and when I came home he hid his poo under his body. :yikes: During that period, I should shower him once in 3 days.

The situation solved until I put a toliet next to his cage (I know I should put it away from his cage, but i have no choice). Then I fenced up the cage and the toliet together with only a narrow path for him to access to toliet. I also made the cage as busy as possible with toys. This arrangment works suprisingly.

Like this - but I made the path much narrow now.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/Tony_hk/cage.jpg

Initially, when you are at home, you have to train your dog to eliminate on the toliet rather than outside home. Later, you can train him eliminate outside home. My 99 now knows he can only "go" either in the toliet or outside home.

His schedule:
Before I wake up at 5am --- eliminate on toliet
During afternoon when I am at work at 3pm --- eliminate on toliet
When I back home after work at 8pm --- eliminate outside home, he has no problem for this. He usually **** after 2 mins walk and poo after another 3 mins! Good boy.

I think this is a transitional solution until he grows up and can hold longer. Then I will throw away the toliet and have him only eliminate outside home. But now I have no choice. How can a puppy hold over 10 hours?

Good luck

[coteyr]

I had this problem with oscar at first. The problem is the create was to big. At a friends advise I reduced the crate in size (so he can poo in one side and lie in other, now he must poo where he sleeps and he wont do that).
Next in tony_hk 's picture i see a crate with a wire bottom. This is so the poo can fall through. This is bad because they learn if they poo where they are it's not really where they sleep (note: in tony's case it might have been nessery because of his time arrangment.) your dogs crate should not have a wire bottom it should be solid (preferable with raised edges to keep any messes in (not from bathroom but tipped food/water).

If all that is already true then there might not be much you can do aside from taking him outside alot and when you do catch him give a sharp (no loud) NO! then scoot him right out the door (hopefully followed by more bathroom and praises (make sure not to scare the pup to much or he mightthink going to the bathroom is wrong, not just doing it in the crate is wrong)) Make sure you only NO! when he is in the middle of doing it. After the fact it's pointless. Another trick that might help (but could be mesey) is get a blanket or towel and put it in his create, make it feel more like home, if he goes in there though be ready for lost of laundry. Try to use the same towel and blanket too. Avoid washing the crate with ammonia, thats only going to make it worse. One last idea, (might be pointless in your case seeing as he already goes outside.) Take his mess out and put it in his potty area. If he smells it there it might trigger him to go. opps one more, wash the create out with bleach, it removes most of the poop smell (that you can't even smell) special pet cleaners are available too.

[coteyr]

dont forget after bleech to rinse it real good and don;t let him back in till after it is completly dry.

[Herschel]

dont forget after bleech to rinse it real good and don;t let him back in till after it is completly dry.

Instead of bleach you should use an enzymatic cleaner such as Nature's Miracle or Petastic.

[Budrbean]

I am having a similar issue and would like some advice please. I adopted a 3 month old American Bull Dog Mix (not sure with what) about 3 weeks ago. I started crate training him immediately. I must say I am very hapy with his progress thus far, because after only a week and half he started going to the door when he needed to go out. A lady I work with told me about hanging a bell on the door and he will start ringing it when he needs to go out. Lo and behold its working.

Back to the issue. I work 3rd shift and I crate him up while I am gone. Probably 75% of the time when I come in each morning he has messed in his cage. I have it partitioned to where he only has room for himself and he either stands beside the mess or tries to push it out of the cage thus creating a terrible mess. Someone earlier explained how kennel dogs are forced to lie in their mess. Im not so sure this is true in my case, cause when I adopted him from the shelter he was in a pretty big cage.......probably 8ftx4ft.

First thought was feeding schedule. I was feeding him half his food at 7am and the other half about 4 pm when I wake up. So I changed it to feeding him all his food in the morning. I take him out several times in the evening....even one last time before leaving for work. I have only been successful one time in getting him to potty outside at that last time outside, and the next morning he didnt mess in his cage. Otherwise I can not get him to mess outside after 4pm no matter what. Then I get home the next morning and he has messed his cage.

Here is his full day's schedule:
10:00pm- Outside for potty, then in the crate.
6:45am- Out of crate, outside to potty, comes back in to eat.
7:45am- Outside for potty, then in crate
(my sleep time)
4:00pm- Outside for potty
this is the FIRM daily schedule that I have followed for 3 weeks. I also take him out several times between 4:00 pm and 10 or as he asks to go out.

Like I stated before I am extremely happy with his progress thus far because in less than 3 weeks we are having no accidents in the house other than the crate. A lady I work with suggest I dont partition his cage and allow him to potty in the cage because I cant expect a 3 month old puppy to hold it that long. My only issue is why can he hold it from 8-4 but not 10-7? He had some episodes of peeing in the cage at first but now he can hold his bladder.

Sorry so long winded, just wanted to give as much info as possible to see if anyone could offer some help and see if there is something I can change.

Thanks!

[coteyr]

hes simply not old enough yet. He can only hold it for his 1 hour * age in months + 1 hour. So anything longer then 4 hours and hes gonna mess. No choice. Try letting a friend take him out when you can't.

[coteyr]

The diffrence in 8-4 and 10-7 is sleeping (most likely)

[Budrbean]

Its just weird because most puppy training info I could find suggested taking him out 20-30 min after eating. I can do that a million times and all he will do is pee. Its almost like he is trying to hold it which maybe he is and a few months down the road all will be well.

I dont have any friends that will come over at 2 am to let him out. Its probably something im just gonna have to deal with for a while.

[MafiaPrincess]

If you don't find a way to make it work, you may end up creating dirty puppy syndrome and the dog not letting go of denning instinct.

It's just too long to hold it, or expect it to be held.

[Herschel]

Its just weird because most puppy training info I could find suggested taking him out 20-30 min after eating. I can do that a million times and all he will do is pee. Its almost like he is trying to hold it which maybe he is and a few months down the road all will be well.

I dont have any friends that will come over at 2 am to let him out. Its probably something im just gonna have to deal with for a while.

Do you "let him out" into your yard, take him outside and stand there, or walk for 30 minutes?

I know very few dogs that can hold it while walking for 30 minutes, and no puppy can hold it that long while walking.

[coteyr]

Do you "let him out" into your yard, take him outside and stand there, or walk for 30 minutes?

I know very few dogs that can hold it while walking for 30 minutes, and no puppy can hold it that long while walking.
The problem is he isn't home. He works nights (if I am not mistaken)

Just letting him go will override his instinct not to go. He will never get trained that way (or it will be increadbly hard. Crate training doen't seem the way to go for you.

Confine him to a room with a hard floor and use puppy training pads. Dogs prefer to go on absorbent surfaces (not always though). Later you can move the pads close to the door, then put them outside. Eventually you can remove the pads all together. I can't remember is the pup maleor female. If male it may be eayser. He might start to "mark" when walked and you can praise to high heaven for that.

[Budrbean]

I have a very small fenced in yard and that is where he uses the bathroom. I go out with him and when he is done he immediately comes back in. This is area is not play area or walk area, its strictly potty area.

As I mentioned before, I tried not partitioning the cage so he will have a place to go if need be and not lay in it. Both this morning and evening he had not used the bathroom in his cage at all. So I think hes getting it, its just gonna take a lil whie to learn the control.

[Budrbean]

Update........I took the partitions out of his cage 2 days ago and he hasnt messed in it yet. Kinda backwards and crazy but for some reason he is holding it. Even last night I had to leave him for almost 9 hours and no accident.

[jackrussellmom]

I also have a JRT puppy, Jake who is 12 weeks old, He will not stay in his crate without messing in it no matter how small I make the area. He also cries so loud it is ear piercing. Please anyone have any ideas. I have gotten to the point that at night he sleeps with us instead of in his crate, which I know is a no, no just so we don't have to listen to him cry for hours. We got him at 7 weeks and he did fine for about 2 nights and then since then he thinks the crate is where he goes when he is in there or occassionally he will go in there to relieve himself only if we dont see his cues to go out. This only happens on rare occassions when he is not in the crate, but when he is confined to it, there is a 99% chance there will be a mess when we get home. We have someone let him out for us about 3 hours into the day and then when our son gets home, so we know he is not in there a solid 7-8 hours...HELP!!!!!!!!!

[Baxter'smybaby]

when someone lets him out, do they walk him? Walking will stimulate his system, and he will be more likely to poop. I know I had some trouble with my dog (not a puppy, but young)--and finally I figured out just beacause he wanted to go back in the house after he peed, did not mean he didn't have to go poop. He now knows I won't bring him in right away-I will tell him to "go" and eventually he will.

[jackrussellmom]

Yes when he goes out he is out for about 10-15 minutes and does go pee & poop, but he still messes in the crate after that. I was wondering if it was separation anxiety.