Hi All,

I am new to the forumn and a new puppy owner. I have Lola a patterdale terrier who is 10 weeks old yesterday and I have had her two weeks.

She is a lovely thing so friendly and happy, get son well wiht my cat fine.

I am having a few problems and was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction. I work 9 -6 Mon to Fri, however I let Lola out at 6AM, 9AM, 12Noon, 3 PM and 6PM then every hour after work. She is never left alone for more than 3 hours.

When she is able to go out for walks in 2 weeks she will be taken on a long walk morning and night and a shorter walk on a lunchtime.

Up until this weekend Lola was sleeping in her crate and going into the crate freely, she was messing in her crate overnight but only a little bit. Usually I was waking around 3am to her cries to go out and she was howling for about 30 -40 minutes at the very most!

Since the weekend she howling all night again in the crate and even though she goes out and empties her bladder and does a poo she tends to start panicing when she is in her crate on a night and continulsy cries, I try my best to leave her but after afew hours I cant take anymore.

Her crate is in the living room, where everyone is when we are in, during the day she will freely run in and out.

I'm really hoping someone can point out where I can make her feel safe and secure and help her to not panice. Also to help her go outside more often than in her crate again

Thanks.
Sarah

Hi ya,

I am by no means an expert but I will try and help if I can!

Firstly toilet training - do you praise/treat her when she does her business outside? As soon as she has toileted make sure you praise like you've never praised before and give her a treat. She'll soon get the hang of going outside but because you're not with her all the time it might take a bit longer for her to catch on. (Ideally take her out every 20 mins or so and also after meals and after a sleep). Her bladder is still very little so she'll need to go toilet more often than an adult dog. Keep taking her out at 3am too.

Secondly, crate training. Remember she is very little and I know when we had Basil he cried constantly through the night. I couldn't bear it so I brought his crate in to our bedroom. When Basil was in our room and started to whimper I would just roll over or cough to let him know I was there but I didn't make contact with him as such. The very first night he was in our room he settled much more quickly.

Being so little she may need some reassurance that she hasn't been abandoned - it's a huge step being taken from the litter and then being expected to be left alone! So I guess you either tough it out (and I know some people have done this and all is well now) or if you're a softie like me, bring her in to your bedroom temporarily until she's more secure. Once she settles easily through the night in her crate, move it out of the bedroom gradually over a few days to where you want her to be.

Time, consistency and patience is what's needed with puppies - it sounds like you're doing OK and remember it's still very early days!

Anyway, hope this helps - let us know how you get on!

I second what Mama Sass says about the crate.
Re toilet training: she really is too little to be expected to hold her bladder for 3 hours! They can't physically hold it in that long. The relevant equipment if you wish doesn't develop fully until they are at the earliest 12 weeks old. Since she has already weed the crate, I suggest taking everything out and replacing it with something that doesn't smell off wee. She will probably still be able to smell the wee from before and assume it will be okay to wee there again.
Also, a 12-week old pup shouldn't be walked for more than 15 minutes. That is pounding the pavement. Obviously, she'd be allowed to run freely in the garden/ park etc.
Good luck!

You started well enough as your pup was freely using the crate as a den but your pup now seems to associate the crate now with being left for what, to a puppy, is a long time alone without a known end. The pup has begun to transfer it's attachment from it's mother and littermates to you, it cries for you to reassure it that all is well.

Before when your pup cried to go to the toilet at 3am you got up but there have been times the pup has cried to go for a wee and poo but nobody has let her out. The safe den has become a horrible, smelly inescapable toilet and a boring place to be left alone as well.

If you teach your pup that making a noise in the crate is her cue to you to let her out for the toilet but then when she asks to be taken to the toilet and you aren't there to take her out that's very confusing for her.

You will need to spend time playing until she is tired then take her out late at night, midnight or later, and wait until she does a wee and poo and praise her to high heavens for being clever then she can go to bed with a stuffed kong. You may have to stay around until she goes to sleep. It may help if you go back to basics and have her bed where you can reassure her she isn't alone and that crying in her den always results in being taken to the toilet. Wash hers bedding in biological washing powder or liquid to remove the smell. You may not be able to smell it but she will be able to.

When she cries at 2 or 3am get up take her out to the toilet but don't play with her, put her back in her crate with her stuffed kong. The kong gives her something to comforting do to take her mind off being left alone. Praise her for using the kong during the day. It's like giving her a dummy.

If you want to know what it is like for your puppy right now drink a couple of pints of water, confine yourself to your bed at 9am and only get up every 3 hours to do something interesting and essential for the same amount of time as you stay with your puppy at 12, 3pm and 6pm. You would be bored witless and desperate for the loo wouldn't you? So think about how to make her den a more interesting place to pass the time. At least provide a kong for when she is alone.

I think 3 hours is too long to expect her to cope without a wee at her age and she isn't learning much Mon-Fri locked in her den so if you could get a friend to go in to help you all the better.

Hello Sarah and welcome to the site.

Congratulations on your new pup and on choosing to take care of a dog. Although you might feel an bit in awe at the cute bundle of fur currently being a little sh!t for producing little sh!ts at random this is a phase that together you will work through and come out the other end, as it were.

Points to consider.

Your pup has a small bladder and intestine so can not store urine and poo for a long time after digestion before passing. For feeding a young pup like yours you will be aiming at three or four meals per day; so to match the feeding needs to the poo limitations is not a simple task.

To make your life a bit easier you might vary the portion size that you feed to give you pup the best chance at toilet control during the times of longest isolation. (sorry it's a harsh word but I mean no malice in it's use)

You might make her early feed 1/4 of the daily allowance followed by 1/4 in the early afternoon and a 1/2 in the early evening. So the bulk of poo time happens in the evening and early morning when you are at home.

As the days turn cooler people have the central heating on and this will make a dog drink more and therefore urinate more, something to be considered.

It might help you to schedule feeding and poo-time by closely monitoring the transit time for your dog eating, you can use some mashed up egg shells in the food to act as a trace, they are not all digested but those bits that are or a great source of calcium and will do you dog no harm at all.

Seeing how long it takes to digest and pass a meal will help you feed X hours before you know you will be home to supervise poo-time.

We have a new GR pup that we took on at about three months and toilet training was luckily very easy and painless for us all. Being at home and quickly transporting the pup to the poo-zone in the garden the moment he started looking like he was about to go then give praise. We had a few wet moments and one poo one morning but otherwise that was it.

To encourage your dog to go in the poo-zone you can seed the spot by using the smallest dab of some other dog's poo and or urine. Yes I know that this seems horrible but the dog's natural desire will be to sniff it to gain information about the other dog (sex, sexual status, food) and then use her own urine/poo to cover up the other dog's scent.

Which leads me to your floors, once she has urinated and pooed in the same spot a few times it will be reassuring to her to poo there. Consider if you were to use a potty in the lounge it would not feel right to you - but to do so in the bathroom would - you are trained to poo there. With a dog they will sniff the poo-point first so you need to be removing the scent of her previous poos.

The best way to do this is use warm water and normal clothes washing powder. Rinse, dry and then use a little distilled (clear) vinegar, we had a hand sprayer with 50:50 solution of vinegar, you can make is stronger or use neat. 50:50 was enough for our use on tiles. This process stops it smelling like a poo-point and does not smell like a fish & chip shop afterwards.

Walkies: To ensure you get the best start for your pup the guidelines are that you walk 5 minutes per month of the age of the dog. It's not an exact science but at three months we were doing ten minutes in the early morning and ten minutes just before sunset with our other dogs. (we have three ATM) The limited walk time and a diet that is not too heavily loaded with protein, this is unlikely to be a big problem for your Patterdale as I do not believe they have a reputation for CHD/ED etc.

One thing I do know about Patterdales is that they are a working hunting dog, so during the winter months tucked up at home you would be wise to be reading about training and activity based games to play with your dog. There are sub-forums here that are worth reading through. Your dog will be interesting in chasing perceived prey in the garden and she will probably be a digger too.

But you have these new areas to explore in the coming year.

Don't be disheartened too much when you arrive home to that odour as you open the door, she doesn't know better as yet and if you are angry (dog read human body language and faces very well) she does not know why - Lola can not establish the connection between her going to the toilet and you not being as pleased to see her as she is to see you.

HTH

It's already been said - but 10 weeks old is way too young to be able to 'hold it' for 3 hours. She should be taken out every 30 minutes at most so she can empty the tanks. At her age the interval between feeling the need to go, and having to go, is very short. The muscle control just isn't there yet.

Manoy Moneelil has some great advice.