Hi all, I have a 6 month old lab, we've had her for just over 2 months. After a tough start she's now really settled in and mostly an easy pup to look after. There is a couple of issues with her toilet training, we keep her crate in a pen with its door open for when we leave her during the day and she has got into the habit of seeing her pen as a suitable place to go to the toilet. She gets plenty of opportunities to go outside and for walks before being left in there and it is only ever for a maximum of 4/5 hours, usually less but she will still go to the toilet in there. Are there things to do that will help stop her seeing it as a place to go? Also, recently she has been crying to go out to the toilet around 3am (we shut the crate door on a night) so I have been getting up to take her out and she usually poos straight away. The last few nights I have started to leave the crate door open in the pen as my wife has to get up early for work and getting woken up at 3am most nights wasn't ideal. This worked in that we weren't woken up but of course there was a nice mess in the pen to clean up in the morning. Any advice on working to change her toilet schedule would be appreciated. She is fed on a morning between 7-730am and on an evening between 5-530pm. Thanks, Mat
Hi mat, I would think the best option would be to go back to basics. What I mean is going back to the shut door at night, and the getting up to toilet once during the night, extending the time maybe by 15 mins a night. Also make sure your pen is scrupulously clean, clearing all pees and poops up and de-odourising with Simple Solution or something else similar. Certainly at 6 months I would think most dogs would be OK overnight, although there are always outliers. I would guess the fact that she has just been with you for the last 8 weeks there has been a bit of a blip in her house training.
