She’s 13 weeks old and has improved on not peeing in house. stays in crate overnight in kitchen and does well until morning. We usually wake up around 630am, but by 5am she’s barking like crazy. Past few days we have found poop pee in crate when we let her out in the am. Is it better to: (A) go ahead and get up so she doesn’t mess crate (if so, won’t she just learn to bark whenever she wants out because we have started to let her out whenever she barks?) (B) just wait her out til I’m ready to get up and let her out to do her business (if so, will she ever stop messing crate? Seems too young to be bothered by poop in her little crate)
Absolutely don't leave her to toilet in her crate; firstly, it's unkind as they really hate to be forced to do that, and secondly you risk ruining the use of a crate for toilet training purposes; if she learns it's OK to go in her "den" then she's going to be happy going in the rest of your house, too. The best thing to do is hidden answer C - set your alarm to get up before she starts barking and let her out to go, then put her back in afterwards. Each night, you can set the alarm back by 15 minutes, if she was successful.
So for the time being I’ll just have to get up early when she barks and let her out to go do her business, then put her back in? Just don’t want her to start thinking “I want out, I’ll just bark!” I guess by putting her back in after she does her business, she will learn the difference? Thanks!
As @snowbunny said you need to get up before she wakes up and barks - but make the toilet trip boring - no eye contact, no conversation, just out of crate and outside to do a wee and poo and then back into the crate. You can then go back to bed. Good luck
