pooping in cage

[Santo]

Hi,

We brought our Rottie home at 7 weeks old, he is now 10 weeks. At night he sleeps alone in his cage. The first 2 weeks he never pooped in his cage, just this past week he's has been doing it. His last feeding is at 6:00pm, he's in his cage at 10:00. We bring him out and he goes to the bathroom before he's in for the night. Is it because he's just to young to hold it the entire night, or he is trying to tell us he doesn't like his cage? I'd appreciate any advise.

[Judi W]

No, he's not telling you he doesn't like his cage. It is most likely that his feeding time is not correctly timed for the night schedule. What time in the morning is he being let out?

[Santo]

He gets fed at 6:30am, before we go to work. My girlfriend lets him out to go to the bathroom, he does his business then goes back in his cage. When we bought the cage for a full size rottie, so there's a lot of room in there. I'm mentioning that cause i'm not sure if that makes a difference, he has room to hide his poop under the blankets that we put in there.

[AngelBunny]

Santo:

There're likely two problems:

1) If you didn't block off the full-sized crate you bought so your guy is confined to an area in the front that's *just big enough for him to turn around,* the crate is too big. The whole point of using a crate when housetraining is to make the crate so small Fido doesn't want to mess in it because there's no place to get away from the resulting mess. So instead of messing, Fido whines & cries & alert owner instantly responds by taking Fido outside to the latrine spot.

2) At 10 weeks, your puppy has bladder & bowel control for about 3-1/2 hours (1 hour for each 4 weeks of age + 1 hr). To help quickly housetrain your puppy, this means puppy should be taken out every 2-1/2 hours at least.

If he was my puppy, I'd wake up once during the night to take him outside. When I have a puppy, I'll take Fido outside--even if I have to wake Fido up from a dead sleep. Usually Fido did something when we went outside after which Fido would get a tiny treat & told he or she was the world's best puppy before being put back into the crate.

[Judi W]

It's simply too long a wait for him. My young pups usually had their last outside around 11:00 and then up again about 5 or 5:30. I also tend to feed the little ones their last meal quite a bit later to stimulate a late potty and to hold till morning.

At any rate, put the crate beside your bed so you can hear when he becomes restless and take him out. It might be 1 or 5, doesn't matter. He is putting it under his blankets so he won't have to lie in it. Do this immediately because he is learning to potty in his crate out of necessity and you don't want that to be a habit. Sleep lightly so you will hear him and be kind. It is terrible to be locked up and have to go potty with no choice but your own bed for a toilet. This doesn't last forever, but it is one of the things that is necessary with a baby. If it is the middle of the night, make sure he doesn't think it is play time after potty, simply put him quietly back in his crate.

[Santo]

I think you're right Angelbunny, I think the crate might be to big and he's to young to hold it for that long, but what confuses me is that the first 2 weeks we had him, he hasn't pooped in his cage, this just started happening the past 5 days. The feeding habbits haven't changed since the day we brought him home. He's really a good dog, extremely smart that he surprises me sometimes, and very sneaky LOL. He's a pup so i expect some mistakes. So i was just wondering why he has just started this the past 5 days. Any suggestions?

[AngelBunny]

Santo:

I have no idea why he was one way for two weeks & now he's not that way. All I can say is: he's a puppy, puppies change from day to day, this is what he's doing now, so you need to address the way he is now.

It'd probably take you more time to figure out what caused the change than it'd take you get him housetrained!

Judi W's advice about putting the crate in your bedroom is excellent. We do that with puppies (and fosters) during housetraining. Before going to bed, I'll drink 2 big glasses of water so I *have to* get up myself during the night. This is how I'm able to take Fido outside at night because otherwise, I'm a very very sound sleeper!

[Paxx]

I am moving this to Training.