Morning Everyone, Today is the second day and I am trying to keep her on schedule for the week and normal activities. When I put her in the playpen she just barks and whines. I put her in there to feed her to try and make it a pleasant experience, then I went to take a shower but she barked pretty much the whole time from what I could tell. I don't take her out till she stops crying for a second and give her a treat before taking her out. Is this just going to take time? I go back to work on Monday as I cannot take much time off. I have a dog walker coming twice a day and I will be coming in between her visits so should only be at most around 3 hours where she will be in the pen each time. Also I took her out she peed but did not poo. I then put her in her pen for a few minutes to do a couple things and she pood while in there. The only times she has good in the house is in the pen on puppy pads. I stayed outside for another 5 or 10 min before she would just sit at my feet and not do anything which is when I came in. Should I have stayed out longer or could she do this in the pen just due to being alone? Any tips appreciated. Thanks,
Hello, Be careful with her playpen. I had a playpen for Jenny when we brought her home at eight weeks, and the second day she climbed out of it. John rigged some corner pieces of wood and attached them trying to prevent it. Didn't work. On top of that, everytime she had to poo, she would go into the playpen to do her business instead of going to the back door. Once we got rid of the playpen, no problem, hasn't had a poo accident in the house since. Jenny is now six months old 99% house trained usually if she has a pee accident its my fault for not getting her out fast enough, very few accidents though. She is usually in the crate just at night, I leave crate door open and she goes in and out on her own during the day unless I can see she is extremely tired and then I close door and she goes right down without a wimper. I wish you luck with the playpen, hope it works out for her. I just wanted to relate my experience with Jenny.
How old is your puppy? Things to try to get her to poo outside. Give her a few minutes to try to poo. If not go back inside and come back out after 30 minutes for a very young puppy, and try again. If it still doesn't work go for a short walk or play to get their bowels moving and then try again. Reward/praise heavily once they do it. Always make sure they had a poo and pee before you leave her for an extended period in the pen/crate. Set a feeding schedule that works for you. My wife leaves for work at 4 am and I get up at 5 am. When we first got Sparky, she would take him out immediately out of his crate in the morning and feed him at 4 or 5 am. He will have a long pee and a most definite poo. When I take him out before I leave for work around 6:30 am, he will have another poo/pee. Then he goes into his pen for the day. His lunchtime was around 11 am and dinner was 5pm. I had a sitter come around 11 am to feed him and take him potty. He was mostly good at holding it when he is in his pen until the sitter comes and lets him out. We've tried potty pads but he only actually peed in it like twice. He's destroyed it the other times or uses it as a bed. I would check if its wet and came to realize he can hold it for a while when he's in the pen inactive. So we got rid of the potty pads. When he's playing with us, pee accidents were more common. It does get better and it will take time. Alot of people here say 4 months is a big turning point as far as potty training. As Sparky got older, he can hold poo much longer. I think his maximum time to hold his poo while crated or in the pen is about 8-9 hours now. Now he goes poo when he wakes up, when someone gets home around 3 or 4pm, and around 8 pm before bedtime. I think one thing I need to change now is his dinner time and move it up an hour to 6 pm. It will give us a chance to slightly oversleep on a weekend without paying for any consequences. As far as the pen. You can buy a pen cover/lid that can flip back and let you go inside. He has been real good with not jumping/climbing over the pen for the first 6 months until just recently when he got taller and can see over the crate now and managed to grab his harness that we left on top of it and chew it up. Now I have the pen cover semi-permanently covering his pen. Also, I use enzyme cleaner for poo accidents too. Label states that it gets rid of fecal odor also so I hope that helps. Get several kongs and fill it with good stuff. Freeze it if your pup has already learned how to deal with frozen kongs. Chuck one in her crate/pen and then go take a shower. It will keep her occupied for a while. I think once you figured out your schedule/routine you will be fine. During the work week I only had the sitter come once a day during lunchtime to break up his day until someone gets home around 3 pm. You with the sitter looks like you can see him 3-4x during the day. You will fare much better than us. Barking. Sorry can't help you with that. I've been blessed with a pup that does not bark. He has only barked twice in the 7 months we've been together. He would whine but not bark. The whining we ignored until he was quiet for a minute. When he was younger we would take him out immediately just in case he was whining for a pee/poo. As he got older, we can ignore it knowing that he wasn't due for a pee/poo. Good luck!
Thanks for the replies, i know things will get better its just frustrating trying to figure out how long to really leave her while she barks and not reward the barking/whining. Been trying some new things yesterday and today. Took it easy and tried not to do to much with her, the first day. The down side is I really don't have a way of limiting her to a room where there is no carpet I have really wide doorways and a majority of the house is carpet except a couple rooms that are hard wood but again can't get them. xxryu - She is 8 weeks and a few days old just came home Friday. Things seem to have gotten a bit better yesterday. Minus the waking up every 2-3 hours at night to let her out. When out side she has been getting distracted with leaves and wondering with the smells. I am going to run to petsmart today and get a pen for our site and try putting her in that to potty and see if that helps with the distractions. -Josh
