[natesmom14]

We did have one rescue (my sweet Daisy who just passed away March 31st) who was confined 24/7 for the first few months of her life to an extremely small cage with mom and other pups- after that she was petrified of enclosed spaces and we could not get her used to a crate, closed bathroom or anything else. She did EXTREMELY well in housetraining and if she ever had an accident, you knew she was sick in some way- once was UTI, once was Giardia...When she got very old, we did take her water up after a certain time of night, because she just got to a point where she physically could NOT hold it anymore if we didn't take some extra precautions (taking up water, letting her out several extra times a day, etc)- totally not her fault- she was a bigger dog and 13 years old when she passed.

Nikki (our rescued Rottie- got her over 3 years ago when she was approx. 18 mos. old) has had very few housebreaking issues and was not in a crate- any accidents she has had was also when it was MY fault.

That being said, our new Notweiler pup (who is 12 weeks old) that we rescued IS crate trained- he's all of 4 pounds right now and can go from 9PM to 4:30am (when my husband takes him out when his alarm to get up for work goes off- he is totally quiet and doesn't make a peep until that alarm goes off!). Then he goes back in his crate until my alarm goes off at 6:40. On the weekends, he wakes us up at around 6am to go potty. If one that small can comfortably go that long at night, there is no reason your 18 mos. old Rottweiler can't. Definitely check for UTI and after that, I would use the leash or crate for sure- it can make a huge difference VERY quickly!

Good luck!