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Old March 12th, 2005, 11:53 PM
Dahlia Dahlia is offline
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Ok, who paper trained their puppy?

I have been trying to housetrain my 9wk old beagle puppy. We've had her for 10 days now. I'm using the crate method and doing everything I'm supposed to. The problem is she poops in her crate. I'm not talking when she's in there too long, either. I'm home all day and she hardly ever goes potty in the house during the day when she's out. At night she seems to hold it until she gets in her crate. I take her out right before bedtime and she won't go. I've had her out there for as long as 20 minutes, and nothing. So what I'm TRYING to do is put her in her crate for a few minutes, then take her back out to go potty. But in the 5 minutes before I get her back out she poops. And this is every night, at bedtime and in the middle of the night. I wake up and she's whining so I take her out and she might pee, and I stay out there with her for a LONG time. Put her back in the crate and within a few minutes she poops. It's driving me nuts! Why is she doing this? Any ideas? I'm wondering if she's caught on to the fact that if she poops in the crate she gets out so I can clean it. She seems to actually poop more at night than during the day, we're talking 2-3 times.

I know she's little and she can't hold it, and I know it's not her fault so I don't yell at her except when I catch her in the act, then I just say NO! and get her outside as fast as I can, then praise her when she does it outside.

What I'm wondering is if it would be easier to paper train her. When she does go in the house it's usually in the same general area. I think I am getting all the smell out because it's not the exact same spot every time, just the same area. So I'm thinking I might not have a problem getting her to go to a paper every time, then work on getting her to go outside as her capacity to hold it increases.

She doesn't really hate her crate, she goes in it on her own at night and falls asleep, but she doesn't like it when we shut the door, and she poops almost immediately. Could the stress of being locked up be causing this? If so, I'm willing to try another method.

For those of you who paper trained your pup, how did you do it and do you have any potty problems with them as adults? I have read that it teaches them that it's okay to go in the house, or they might go on any old paper they see lying around. Just wondering.

What do you think?
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Old March 13th, 2005, 12:02 AM
Prin Prin is offline
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I know it's a bit of a waste of time, but when we first got our big Boo, he wouldn't go outside. We'd walk him for a while and come home and he'd pee right inside the door. So what we did was loaded our pockets with cookies and went out for a walk. We walked and walked and walked and after 3 hours, he peed and my god did he get treated like a rock star. Cookies and praise. He never peed in the apartment again. I know you probably don't have the time, but that is what I would do for the won't pee at night and then pees in the crate stuff. I guess I just never cave...
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Old March 13th, 2005, 12:10 AM
Dahlia Dahlia is offline
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If she was doing that during the day I wouldn't have a problem walking her for hours, but it's only at night. I think she knows that once she poops she will have to go in her crate for the night so she holds it. Is that possible?

I can't stay up all night with her because I also have a baby. If I could get some sleep during the day to make up for it, it would be okay, but I can't. I'm already getting up twice a night to take her out, only to have her poop in her crate anyway, then I have to scrub it at 2am, since sometimes she gets the poop on her feet and wipes it all over the crate because she's trying to get out. My dh asked my today why my eye was bruised. It's not a bruise, it's a vein that gets really dark when I'm sooo tired from not getting any sleep. I'm not complaining about having to get up with her, but it's just not doing any good.
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Old March 13th, 2005, 12:49 AM
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mafiaprincess mafiaprincess is offline
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When is the last time your pup eats at night?
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Old March 13th, 2005, 01:04 AM
Dahlia Dahlia is offline
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she eats at 6 pm and I put the water away at around 8. We try to go to bed around 10 because dh has to get up at 5 am for work.
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Old March 13th, 2005, 01:43 AM
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mafiaprincess mafiaprincess is offline
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Have you thought about bumping dinner a little earlier maybe? Ours eats at 6, and takes her last bathroom break around 10. It may not do anything for your problem, but you may try for maybe a week to see if you can get her to go before your pup is crated for the night.

Oh, another thought. Ours doesn't like us to watch her do her business... We have a pottybox since we are on the 6th floor of an apt building. She generally waits until she absolutly has to go to the bathroom, or when the livingroom is empty to do her business.

We taught the words 'go potty' to try to speed up her doing her business at times like when you are already late for puppy school and you think the dog may have to go.. She was a prostar at it by the end of a weekend of workign with it.
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Old March 13th, 2005, 02:01 AM
Dahlia Dahlia is offline
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I could try feeding her at 5. I don't know, it might help. Maybe she doesn't like us watching her, but I thought that was how you were supposed to potty train, by praising when they "go" outside? Personally, I'm ready to try a potty box or a pee pee pad or a newspaper, anything. I am just SOOO tired of scrubbing her crate out sometimes 3X a night, and having to wash all that bedding. I told hubby today it's actually easier to clean the carpet! Isn't that sad? He said I shouldn't clean up her crate, just let it stay there and maybe she'll think twice about doing it next time. I think that's mean, and I clean it up as soon as I know it's there.
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Old March 13th, 2005, 10:26 AM
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mona_b mona_b is offline
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I paper trained all my dogs.Back then crate training was not a big thing.My previous GSD was with us till he was 13,that was a little over 9 years ago.And with Yukon and Tron,that was 9 years ago.

Since no dog was crate trained,I blocked off the kitchen.I had the papers down in one area.Also,they were 12 weeks when I got them.So they were already paper trained.Then what I did was take away more of the paper each week.And if they were in the house with me,they had no problems running to the kitchen to do their buisness.When they were outside with me,they were great.They knew to do it outside.And yes,they got lots of praise.Now remember,I was house training 2 puppies...LOL...Also,I never did take away their water at a certain time.They had water down 24/7.

As I took away more of the paper,they were holding it in longer.I could get up or come home and there was no mess on the paper.They would go straight outside to do their buisness.So by 5-6 months,they were house trained and had free run of the house.

Everyone I know,family members and friends have paper trained.And they had no problems what so ever housebreaking.

So,this is my experience with paper training....
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Old March 13th, 2005, 11:44 AM
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maddoxies maddoxies is offline
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I have a mini doxie (adult). I leave puppy pee pads down for him as he cannot hold it for as long as I am away at work. He only goes on the puppy pee pads, and will go outside when we go for our walks.

Two questions/suggestions for your situation.

1. What do you clean the crate with? Water and white vinegar is one of the best cleaning solutions I have found. If the scent remains (she can smell it, we can't) she will return to the same spot over and over.

2. If she is using her crate for a potty, then the crate might be too big. She should only be able to turn around in her crate. It sounds like she has room to go potty and then sleep in another corner. If this is the case, you need to block off part of the crate until she gets bigger.

Ok, I lied, 3rd question/suggestion. What do you do when you take her out at night to go potty? Although puppies are usually pee and poop machines, her bowls might need some stimulation, as in physical movement. She made need to walk around/run a bit, for the bowels to be naturally massaged before she can go. This might be the case, as she goes after she comes inside (been moving around). A little extra physical movement/exercise outside might help the bowels to move a little faster, while she is still outside.

If you try paper training, the puppy pee pads are embedded with a scent (only the dog can smell) to attract them to the pads. I have never had trouble using newspapers and the dog peeing on the "wrong" paper, but they are all individuals.

Good luck
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Old March 13th, 2005, 11:46 AM
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topaz_n29 topaz_n29 is offline
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paper training

I paper trained all my dogs..including now w/Harley he's a 9 week old Shih.
Same as mona..i will start making the paper peices smaller..also i always have their paper by a door..Harley can go up the step but not down yet..so i have paper in the family room where i am on the puter. He eats last at 5pm..I got him at 7 weeks and he has never gone in his crate during the nite.
We go to bed about 11pm and awake at 7am.i let him out ..say pee pee and he runs to his paper then comes bak to me i take him in bed for another hour..till breakfast..all my dogs eat at the same time,..except Harley right now gets the lunch feeding..then i feed my dogs 2x a day 8am and 4 pm..that leaves us free for our supper at 5.he does have mistakes but other than that doing quite well 4 his age.
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Old March 14th, 2005, 10:53 PM
Dahlia Dahlia is offline
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Goldengirl, I wipe it out with clorox wipes then spray with Nature's Miracle and let sit for a little bit and wipe that out. It's a pet taxi, so it would take a long time to dry if I just tried to let it air dry in the middle of the night so I have to wipe it out with a paper towel.

The crate is big enough for her to fit in when she's grown, but I have a box stuffed to the back so she can only use a small section in the front. She has just enough room to lay down and that's it. When she poops in there she gets it all over her so I have to use pet wipes on her.

When I take her out I walk her back and forth along the area of the fence where I want her to go potty. She doesn't want to walk, she just tries to sit in one spot, but I keep her moving constantly with the leash. I stop every couple of minutes to give her a chance to stop and squat. And we're out there Forever!

She has been doing better, though. Saturday I decided to try a little experiment. I thought maybe she was getting too much to eat, so I gave her her morning meal then gave her 2nd meal later than usual and skipped the third - just for that day. We went out Saturday night and she stayed in her crate. When we got home I took her out and she peed and pooped. I stayed up late and took her out again before bed and she pooped again. Her crate stayed clean all night.

Sunday I gave her a little less than usual at each meal and gave her 3rd meal at 4:30. Her crate stayed clean all night. Yaaaay!!!

We'll see how it goes tonight. I had to take dh to the dentist an hour and a half away from home today for an all day sedation dentistry appointment. I took Sophie with me and we hung out at dh's office. She went poop outside at the dentist's office (in the grass of course) and she did it again when we got to dh's office (outside). But she wouldn't do it anymore as long as we were there. Everytime I took her out she would just sniff EVERYTHING and try to dig in the dirt around the trees but she would not poop. And we were there all day. About 10 minutes after we picked dh up she was whining in her crate so I stopped and took her in the grass and she pooped. We had a flat tire so it took a while to get home and she wouldn't go on the side of the road. When we got home the baby was screaming for his bottle so I had to fix it for him and dh was too sedated to do anything so she had to wait in her crate for a few minutes. She pooped before I got her out.

So we'll see how it goes tonight. She hasn't been since she ate dinner, hopefully she will do it outside tonight and keep her crate clean since I had to hose it out after she smeared poop all over the inside.
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Old March 15th, 2005, 10:20 AM
puppup11 puppup11 is offline
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What are you feeding her, and how much? If you feed a high quality dog food, they produce less waste because you need to feed less bulk for the same amount of nutrients. We fed our pitbull Wellness Lamb and Rice, and she would always have to go poop about 1 - 2 hrs after feeding, and that's it. Twice a day. I'm not sure how much your pup weighs, but for comparison we feed ours (now full grown) 2 cups per day going by the package recommendations and keeping her at a healthy weight, and she's about 55 lbs. If she were still growing she would probably get about 2 1/2 - 3 cups per day at this weight.

According to the package recommendations a growing puppy 3 - 17 lbs should get from 1/3 cup to 1 and 1/4 cup per day. Of course that would be different for different dog foods, probably much higher for a lower quality food. But the more that goes in, the more has to come out the other end!

Last edited by puppup11; March 15th, 2005 at 10:24 AM.
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Old March 15th, 2005, 12:25 PM
MegShawnMom MegShawnMom is offline
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Dahlia is correct in suggesting that her crate is to large.Your pup should be able to stand up,turn around and stretch out with a few inches to spare.
Beagles are notorious for being hard to housetrained. You can section off the excess crate area.When you take out to potty use treats as a reward.Clean the create with vinagar, clorine smells like their urine and they get confused and will cover over with their own pee.When you tke out to potty stay out until they do potty,treat,wait a few minutes and then return.You don't want them to think that when they go pee they have to go back in and miss the fun and games outside.You can line the bottom crate with diapers/covers with their blanket/newpaper, much easier to clean up. DON'T show your angry with the pups for soiling, they won't know why your upset with them (you have to catch them within 7 seconds of missing for them to understand what they did wrong) Lots to learn but we can do it,we did it with our kids now we can do it with our other kids
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Old March 15th, 2005, 01:13 PM
Dahlia Dahlia is offline
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Dahlia is correct in suggesting that her crate is to large.Your pup should be able to stand up,turn around and stretch out with a few inches to spare.
Her crate is not too large, I have it sectioned off so that she only has enough room to lay down.
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Old March 16th, 2005, 10:37 AM
SnowDancer SnowDancer is offline
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I also paper trained - and still am to some extent, particularly living in the snow belt and this being my Eskimo's first winter, he hasn't figured out that snow is wet, nasty stuff - he eats his weight in it every time we go out - no matter how hard I try to stop him - so what goes in must come out. I had a problem with the crate training as he suffered a bad experience at the breeder's and was terrified of it to the point of auto-mutilation on the grate. He is getting better, and of course won't "go" in it, but we don't want the auto-mutilation either. I am afraid for him the crate is more of a punishment/time-out place -and it is a big crate for a 19 lb. dog - he sits and hides in the back corner, one little paw raised. So I put out the newspapers and puppy pads - regrettably he decided at age 6 months to eat the puppy pads and I worried about expansion of the material in his throat - and of course he would have an "accident" as I was picking up the pieces to put more down. So now just newspapers, but good news is that he now restricts himself to that area. But suggest you follow other posters suggestions re increasingly smaller pieces of papers. But to me and to my vet, a dog always has to have somewhere he can go in an emergency. Just like people, a dog's system can be more active one day and no matter how well trained, just can't hold it. One of my vet's patients died after jumping through a window so that he wouldn't go inside - turned our their was a urinary infection. Or if you are delayed, what to do? And, yes, Beagles are hard to train - we had a rescue who we adopted at age 7 who lived to be 20 - died in 1986 and this is when we started adopting darling Dachshunds and as the poster said - their bladders are small so puppy pads were useful, particularly after disc surgery. So now the Eskimo - I know his bladder is still growing, just hope it catches up to him. Hope you have fun with your Beagle. Ours loved the car. If you didn't have your baby to take care of while driving, I would suggest that you sit in back seat with your hand in the crate with the dog. But then I am a big wimp!
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Old March 21st, 2005, 04:28 PM
Dahlia Dahlia is offline
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Just wanted to let you guys know that she is doing better. She's not afraid to poop outside in the dark anymore so she hasn't pooped in her crate in several days, except when we were driving to my inlaws this weekend and didn't have a place to stop when she woke up from napping. It's a 4.5 hr drive and we stopped to walk her 2 hrs into the trip and she had the accident about half an hour before we arrived at their house.
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Old March 21st, 2005, 08:54 PM
Lucky Rescue Lucky Rescue is offline
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He said I shouldn't clean up her crate, just let it stay there and maybe she'll think twice about doing it next time. I think that's mean, and I clean it up as soon as I know it's there.
It doesn't work that way, anymore than leaving an infant in dirty diapers potty trains it.

Never do this. Puppy mill and pet store puppies are left to sit in their own waste, and the result is a dog with "Dirty Dog Syndrome" who is nearly impossible to housetrain.

You never want to let her sit in pee or poop at all.
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Old March 22nd, 2005, 10:24 AM
Dahlia Dahlia is offline
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Never do this. Puppy mill and pet store puppies are left to sit in their own waste, and the result is a dog with "Dirty Dog Syndrome" who is nearly impossible to housetrain.
I know, LR, I wouldn't let her sit in it. You know how husbands can be sometimes, though. He has no idea about housetraining a dog. She hasn't been soiling her crate for the last week or so. I guess she's finally able to hold it a little better. Does dirty dog syndrome mean that they don't mind being dirty so they'll just go potty anywhere? Maybe that's why we had such a hard time with the boxer we had once. When we got her she was in a dirt pen that was never cleaned and there was poop all over the ground. She didn't have any hair on her paws because of it. She wouldn't go potty outside, even if we put her out on her rope for an hour, then as soon as she came in the house she would go. This went on for several months.
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Old March 22nd, 2005, 02:10 PM
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mafiaprincess mafiaprincess is offline
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Yeah, that is dirty dog syndrome.

By sitting in their own waste it ruins the natural den instinct to keep their den clean. In housetraining by using a crate it is to try to use that instinct to your advantage, but as it was said, pet store pups that sit in waste the instinct is generally ruined. Sometimes retrainable, but it isn't as easy.
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