I am peeing in my crate

Help! I am peeing in my crate

Hi. I don't mean to post this in the wrong place, but I am just a puppy. Anyway, I've been with my new owners since 12/11 and its been ok. They are trying to housebreak me and there is a decent schedule we are all adhering to. Yet I still pee in my crate. The other day i pooped in my crate. I told my owners that I was just a little puppy and not to be mad, but, they have seen me hold my poop for much longer and i never used to pee or poop in my crate. At least for the first 2 weeks i was here.

As a matter of fact I was really good at whining and barking to let them know I needed to go out of the crate to poop, and they thought I was a brilliant amazing dog to learn so fast! But now I dont do that as much anymore, or at all. You see, I use the same irrtating whining and barking for everything else I want, so once they know for sure that I am already fed, watered, pooped and peed, they reprimand me for whining and barking. Now I am so distraught because they reprimand me, that I wont even bark or whine to let them know I have to pee or poop. Its not good.

They tell me I pee up my crate now because I am mad or distressed about something, but I don't know how to tell them what I am unhappy about. I've only been there for 3 weeks and have them great hope by being so good, but now I'm regressing. I'm not even sure I even know what I am doing. They are confused because I pee and poop outside when they take me out, on schedule - and I am really good at it, but like dr. jeckly and mr. hide > then I pee in my crate even if I have convinced them I am empty.

Like the other day, I was taken out and peed, then played in the snow. Normally I would poop, but I was too busy playing. My owner took me in- especially since I pooped a few hours earlier and they were convinced I was just playing now. 10 seconds later i pooped in my crate -as soon as my owners left the room.

My owners are distraught now and are starting to give up on the "its just a puppy" or "ok, hes a pomeranian and they are harder because they are smaller dogs" because I was so much better.

I have a decent schedule, and not outside my crate without supervision because I keep peeing up the place - sometimes in front of my owners, but especially when they walk away. So now I am in my crate as much as possible until I can figure it out.

Is it separation anxiety? perhaps.. but I am distressed about something in my crate. So much so that now I pee twice a day in my crate, even if I go outside. What is going on? I never used to do this, that is, the first two weeks I was here.

I noticed my new dad getting angry and he's not very nice to me when I do these things. He doesn't hurt me physically, but he is losing patience. Mom is nicer, but even she is getting mad now. Things wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't shown then how good I could be at it. The regressing is making everyone nuts. But there haven't been any major changes I can think of.

Can anyone help me figure out what I might be so upset about? Or, am i really still just a stubborn puppy and thats the end of it?

The one thing I know for sure is that I used to bark and whine to make them let me out and now i just do it anyway. If they dont get to me in time, its too bad. What happened?

what size is the crate?

Its very large. The picture of it is one of these here

http://public.fotki.com/Booper/bear/puppy1.html

They got me this large crate because they work and basically, there are times I might not be able to get out of the crate for 6 hours and I need to run around. This might happen 3 days of the week. Other days I am out of the crate more often. The trouble is I don't exhibit this bad behavior when they are at work during the week. Its when they are home!

You might think I would pee and poop as far from my bed as possible, but not last night. I pooped wherever I wanted and peed all over my care bear.

So my parents tried "boxing me in" so I would have to bark and whine. That made me bark and whine more yes, so I wouldnt poop on my bed, but then my crate was too small for me. I have too much energy - and then I went ahead an peed again anyway! So they gave me the full crate back. They dont know what to do.

Welcome!

Nice job writing the post like you did

First off, I want to say that the feeling of 'regressing' is normal with puppies. It's a big change when they come in a new house, and it takes a week or two for them to feel at ease. For both my dogs they were really good the first week or so, then started being little monsters. So, nothing unusual there, it just means that your puppy has adjusted to his new home.

The problem might be because the crate is too big. Dogs usually don't pee or poop in the place they sleep in (except if they come from petstores), but if the crate is too big and they have to go, they will go to one corner to pee and sleep in the other, it doesn't bother them. So you need a smaller crate, or to put some boxes or whatever you can find to make the crate smaller. It might be hard for a pom, but the best is to leave them just enough room to lie down and turn around a bit. Or buy a small crate for when you're home and a big one for when you're not at home and you want him to have some room.

If you do that and he keeps peeing in it, it might be that crate training just won't work for him. It doesn't work with all dogs. In any case, take him out as much as possible when you're home (every 30 minutes is the best, plus after naps and meals). Let him out 5 minutes, if he doesn't pee or poop take him back in and try again 5 minutes later... Really annoying, but it helps them understand that outside = peeing, not playing. Also when he pees outside, give him 10 minutes of play time inside before putting him back in the crate.

For the barking/whining, I think he just understood that when he does it, he gets out of the crate, which is why he keeps doing it now. My best advice is to forget about using it as a signal and just ignore him when he cries in his crate, or he will never stop.

Also, some dogs are not housetrained before they are a year, so it's going to take lots of patience. They usually don't have full control of their bladder before they are 4-5 months also anyway.

Finally, I got to say, adorable puppy

Thanks Fran!

I am cute aren't I? I try using it to get what I want. I can sit there with the sweetest little puppy face and oh you would think that the world would be handed to me, but not my owners Oh sure, they spoil me when they feel like it, but not on my terms! Grr.

Thanks for your reply. My crate is a little too big, yes. I will ask my owners to get me a smaller crate. But! I just can't bear to think of those days when I am alone for 5-6 hours to be inside such a small crate. So maybe they will get me two crates for now. Or! Or perhaps one side of the crate will have paper so i can pee. At least then I know what to do until I am older. I will make sure they still take me outside on a schedule - but for those longer days..

Yes I agree that's why I would use a small crate for the crate training when you are home and the big one with papers (or wee wee pads) when you are away.

I've noticed that you have a mattress in the crate? If it's still there, I would remove it. If he peed on it and it wasn't properly clean (honestly, most of the time nothing short of washing it in the laundry machine will work), the smell is probably still there and it might be why he's still peeing there. My dogs had no mat in their crate until they were housetrained, not very comfortable but they really didn't care much and I didn't have to deal with cleaning the thing all the time. It's also important to use an appropriate product to clean their pee, because our standard products don't get rid of the smell for them. Nature's miracle is available in petstores and is really good, or you can make your own product with water and a bit of vinegar (I think... I'm sure you can find it if you do a search).

awww what a cute puppy!!

You've gotten some good advice here, get a smaller crate will probably help. If you feel badly about locking him up in there for a longer period time while you are at work maybe it would be possible for you to block off a certain part of the house with flooring that you can easily clean or use the papers on? I just think it might be confusing to him if he has one crate that he's allowed to pee in and another he's not? But I might be completely wrong about that...

We used to keep our sheltie in the kitchen which was blocked off accidents were easily cleaned up there. Also every time he does something outside make a big big fuss about it so he gets the point that outside is GOOOOOOOD. give him treats and stuff, that's what we did and that helped quite a bit.

With our doggy sometimes she'd be great for days and then all of a sudden have an accident inside again we could never really find out why, in time it went away (she hasn't had an accident inside since she was four months old) It can take a long time to train them tho especially if you're not home all the time to watch them. As hard as it is try to have lots of patience and i'm sure in time he'll get better!

Several options to consider:

1: the SINGLE most important thing you can do is reward the puppy handsomely for eliminating where it is appropriate. Take tiny food rewards EACH time you go outside, and make your pleasure with outdoor elimination very clear.

2: you may be asking for toooo much crate time. Poms are coated hardy little dogs. Maybe more outside time is needed. Consider setting up an exercise pen with newspapers or other appropriate setup for elimination so the puppy is not forced to soil his crate if he needs to go when you are not around.

3: how are you reacting when he soils in the crate or in the house? Little puppies this age are incapable of soiling for spite. (Personally I think ALL dogs are incapable of this, they may mark, but I don't thing dogs are capable of these thought processes). I get the impression that the puppy is now worried about elimination, which may be why he's doing it when you turn your back.

Patience is key, and so is rewarding ALL the right behaviors. I have a piece on the training forum here called HOUSETRAINING that goes through the basics for teaching this is a positive manner.

Good luck with him, and remember he's still just a baby.

I agree also that excercise pens are a good idea, it's what I did with Tips but he found out pretty fast how to climb out of it (although the thing was more than twice his height). So my advice for pens is NO COLLAR. I've heard of dogs trying to get out of them and hanging themselves because their collar got stuck

That is a great point, Fran. I am an anti collar militant. LOL

No collars are on my dogs unless I have a leash attached to it!

I'm that way too, except that I'm worried they will escape from the yard and won't have their collar on. They have a microchip but I know lots of people don't even look for them. So just not taking that risk, even though I'm not too fond of the idea of them having a collar on all the time either.

Faith does that too. Everytime we go anywhere and she is crated, she pees and poos in it and then sleeps in it. I think it comes with age and hopefully outgrowing it. I do not bother making a big deal out of it because it is not going to make any difference. Some dogs are cleaner then others too.

Yukon and Faith could careless about sleeping in their messes, they do not ask to go out or tell you anything.

Hope will literally cross her legs to hold it and if she does have an accident she throws a temper tantrum, you know it so you can clean it before she sleeps in it.