What I am wondering about is how to get from our current situation to a house trained dog. We (unfortunately) brought our puppy home when it was only 7 weeks old (accidental backyard litter, and they needed to send the puppies home at that time due to family issues) and I thought it was too early to start house training, so I put her in a pen with a crate in there, and the pen is lined with puppy pads. She is taken out of the pen to play for short periods of time, because we are worried about her peeing on the rugs (she pees every 5-10 minutes when outside), and plays outside on the grass for 10-45 min every awake period, and we play with her in the pen as well. She is hardly being left alone at all during the day time. Overnight she doesn't make a peep between 10:30pm and 6am, and pees (and does 1 poop overnight) on the pee pads. She is now 8 weeks old and I am trying to figure out how to transition from this to house training. If I leave the pee pads in the pen she will pee on them if we are not right there watching her. I think the idea for housetraining is the puppy is either in the crate, where she won't pee, or free in the house (being closely supervised). Should I break down the pen and only let her be in the crate or with us in the house? Thanks!
Hello and welcome. You will get various ideas and opinions on this, so ultimately you need to do what works for you . I have had 5 dogs and they have trained quickly using a crate and super vigilance. It did mean getting up in the night and early mornings, but only for a short time. Meg never once pooped in the house, and only had a couple of wees. I was a helicopter pup owner ! She also is very bright, so understood quickly. Lots of treats outside when successful really helped. Meg was trained by 14 weeks, I think that is a time when their bladders develop abit and become more stable. You can keep the pen and pads. You will get more sleep, but you will just prolong the process, but will probably get there in the end.
