I just purchased a five month old puppy. She immediately took to her crate. The kennel instructed to leave door on crate open 24/7 and to also set down a wee wee pad close to crate. She has had all her shots and I take her out four to five times daily. My dilemma is that she does her business outside but also uses the wee wee pad when I’m sleeping over night or out for a few hours. I’m trying to figure out how will she learn to ONLY go outside if she has her pad available???
Hi @jeff s Please read the following link. Stop using pads because as you have discovered they are not a good idea--you have to "untrain" the pads.You will have to teach the puppy that it is okay to lock the crate. Your were given poor advice--no point of crate training if the door is open 24/7. https://thehappypuppysite.com/crate-training-a-puppy/
I know the prevailing thought is as described in the link above but I’m just going to give my experience. When I first got my pup, aged 8 weeks (so perhaps it’s a bit different from having a five month old?) she had a crate which was in the kitchen behind a baby gate. I left the crate unlocked overnight with newspaper outside her crate up to the back door (so this covered about a third of the floor). During the day the newspaper was removed and she was taken into the garden at frequent intervals and when I was out she was in the locked crate. After about 3 weeks she stopped weeing and pooing on the paper overnight so I removed it and then she was in her crate with the door locked. She was toilet trained day and night very quickly despite the paper. But I think most people would follow what Michael has posted.
Guide Dog Puppy #5 is almost a year old - we don't use newspaper or pee pads. We crate train with the door closed at night, so when baby needs to busy I hear them asking and I take them outside. If they go into the crate for a nap or play during the day, I close the door then too. Otherwise, we head outside immediately after napping, eating, playing, or training, and if they're awake, its every 30 minutes at first, gradually increasing to every hour or so until they start asking to go out. Keeping your eyes peeled for the signs, or the request to go out, is very important.
Leaving the crate open is really just the very first baby step of crate training - to get the dog happy to go in and out with the door open. You rapidly need to move on to shutting the door - or there's not much advantage to using a crate over just a dog bed, since the dog can come out any time! Follow the steps in the article Michael has posted above (which I wrote LOL!). The next step, is shutting the puppy in but sitting right next to the crate so there is no separation involved and the pup has a Kong or something tasty to do in there. The only time you may need to leave the crate door open and pee pads down, is if you need to go out for longer than your puppy can hold her pee. Hopefully you don't need to do that at all. But if you do need to go out for several hours, it is preferable to have a pen or safe area with the crate inside it, door open, and pee pads down. Be aware that any time you use pee pads or cause the dog to toilet indoors (due to not being home to let her out) you are setting your toilet training backwards. Many pet sitters are happy to make a 30min visit to take a puppy out to toilet, play with the pup and break up the day - that way you don't need to use pee pads even if you are out for a few hours.
We did the same with Willow but she was just in the kitchen behind gates and no crate. We did not get up in the night to let her out as I suffer fatigue and other health issues and need lots of sleep. She was trained to go out in the day so we took the pads up but left them down at night until she was going through the night. We let her out at 5am then again at 8am she was fully trained by 5 months.
