Re: Puppy that urinates in crate

In Reply to: Puppy that urinates in crate
Category:   House Breaking
Posted by:  Marie
Posted on:  February 25, 2002 at 08:50:39

: I recently brought home a JRT puppy. He is 10 weeks old and very intelligent. However, I am having some problems housebreaking him.

: I am temporarily living in a sixth floor apartment (awaiting the refubishment of my house, which has a big fenced in yard for the little guy!). So I am paper (and crate ) training him for now. He has started to catch on, but still often runs INTO his crate to pee, instead of on the paper.

: He was raised at a horse barn and was kept in a horse stall with his littermates. As such, I think that he learned to eliminate where he sleeps. I am not a novice at housebreaking or crate-training, but have never run into the problem of a puppy that prefers peeing where he sleeps!

: I was wondering if he might grow out of this habit as he gets older.

: Also --- I 've tried taking him outside to go --- have spent HOURS with him patiently waiting ---- but he will only 'go' at the barn where he was raised! If I walk him anywhere else, he will 'hold it' until he gets back to the apartment, or into his crate.

: HELP! Is this a JRT thing? A stage? A lost cause???
:

Response:

Hi Marie,

The first thing I will suggest is to make sure you are not lining his crate with paper. If you are paper training for now and he sees paper in his crate too, it's just a natural assumption on his part he can use that too for eliminating.

Make sure you use an enzymatic cleaner to clean out his crate, if you don't he will still be able to smell where he went even if you can't.

Make sure you keep one soiled paper when you change papers so he knows where to go. And make sure the papered area is big enough for him.

Next thing I would do is close his crate while he's out so he can't go in there and use it as a toilet. Once they start to eliminate inside their crate it can be a hard habit to break.

Make sure when taking him out that you keep taking him to one spot to eliminate and it would help if you brought some of his droppings to place there so he can start to figure out this is where he goes.

When you take him out you need to make sure you are out there for a fairly adequate length of time however if you stay out too long all will be lost on him on the reason he's out there. So I say if he hasn't eliminated within 10-15 minutes bring him back in. Don't let him roam without a close eye on him and then try taking him back out about a half hour later.

The trick is all in the timing. Once you can get him outside and eliminating he should start to pick up on this fairly quickly. He will soon equate outside with eliminating. That's not to say there'll be set-backs along the way but once they get the general idea you will be well on your way.

Regards,
Marie