14 wk old lab puppy soiling her crate

[skunkbay]

Hi! I am new! We just brought home a 14 wk lab puppy on Friday. She did fine on Fri.night in her crate, but Sat night and last night she pooped in her crate. I let her cry for 45min both nights it was 9:45pm both nights. She had gone pee before bed and had gone a BM after dinner. After I put her into a smaller crate (putting the larger one on the porch) she then went to sleep but then peed in the smaller one both nights. Our Golden Retriever hated his crate but never soiled it. Any ideas? I know that tonight we plan to take her outside at first cry. I just didnt want to renforce her crying.
Skunkbay [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Fred]

A 14 wk old should be able to hold it reasonably through the night (8 hours), but since you aren't starting from scratch, she may have always had the opportunity to pee during the night and I would treat her like an 8 wk old.
When she cries, take her out on leash to a previously used area and give her a couple minutes to go. If she doesn't go or wants to play... walk her back into the house, put her in her crate and ignore any crying until she stops. If she starts again after a couple of hours repeat the process.
I always use a command also, so she learns what you want and praise her when she does what you want, even if it's just a little squirt. A command to "go" has helped me tremendously to get my Ridgeback to relieve himself on rainy days even though I know he would rather hold it until sunny again [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Downsizing the crate was a good idea, are you picking up her water? I always did around 8 PM for a puppy. Are you cleaning the crate with a 50-50 water vinegar solution to remove all urine scent and washing the pup, too? Baby shampoo will work. All a pain in the butt, especially during the wee hours, but necessary. Crate soiling can be a hard habit to break, but not impossible.
You should also monitor how often she squats during the day and how much comes out. If she appears to go a lot, but only a little comes out, she could have a urinary tract infection, something it seems females are prone to.

This is what I have always done anyway. Good luck!

[skunkbay]

Thank you so much! We are going to try having her in our bedroom tonight so we can hear her better and she can see us. We kept her crated all day except for running her around the yard to exercize her and to get her to potty between meals. We also read to feed her in her crate which we did. We have used Miracle dog cleaner found at Petsmart to clean the cage and I did give her a bath. We plan to respond to the crying with going outside tonight but hope that the extra excercize and more crateing will make her more comfortable tonight. We may have given her too much freedom this last weekend too and that could have added to her confusion. As always its most likly our falt!
Thanks again!
skunkbay

[TimSullivan]

Why are you keeping her crated all day?

I would suggest that you feed early and take the water up at least three hours before bedtime. Housetraining a puppy is easy if you spend the time. Well most times it is easy. Make sure the puppy is taken outside often to relieve itself. During the day very two hours at first then start stretching it out. When they cry, take them out. Not fun at three AM but that is the fun of having a puppy.

[johnday]

skunkbay; A little humor on this. She's still a baby, what did you do when you were a baby! [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img] Seriously though, Labs are very intelligent dogs. You got some good advice. Keep working with her and she'll get it! I just couldn't resist the obvious! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[skunkbay]

We have been taking her water up at 5:00pm and not keeping her crated all day. She has been in and out of the crate during the day with breaks of exercise and play in between. We did buy a cat crate and put it by our bed last night and placed it on a chair and she could see my husband and did way better getting us up only once last night. We did find out that she was only 11weeks old too so that made more sence about getting up more too. The husband of the gal that owns the Mother dog told me the wrong birthdate so now that that is corrected we are not expecting as much.
Things are much better today!
skunkbay

[Fred]

That's good news. Glad to hear things are working out better.