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Permalink Reply by Beth on November 27, 2012 at 12:09pm

I hate to suggest confining her to a smaller space, but if she is happy to not hold it in a pen, you may need to confine her to a crate to see how she does when she can't get away from it.

I penned Jack and by 6 months old they should be able to hold it for about 6 hours IF they are trying, with an occasional accident. I would leave him at that age for four hours, come home at lunch to take him out, and just about always find a clean pen. We had to leave him longer one day because no one could come home at lunch, and I found one huge puddle where he had clearly held it as long as possible.

So if she goes when you only leave her an hour and a half, that means that she's probably not bothered with going right where she is playing as long as she can get a little way away. I'm assuming you've ruled out any health problems, like a UTI or parasites? You might want to have her checked out before confining her to a smaller space.

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Permalink Reply by Dora & Rocky on November 27, 2012 at 1:19pm

I agree with Beth. Barring from any health problems, it sounds like it's too much freedom too soon. At 6 months, Piper should be able to hold it for 5, 6 hours so your best solution is, if you're leaving the house, put her back in her crate and if you're home, make sure you can always see her so if you see her sniffing around a lot, you can take her out so she can pee/poop outside. If you have to be all over the house and don't want to lock Piper up in her crate, put her leash on and hook it to your pants so she has to follow you so you can keep an eye on her.

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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on November 27, 2012 at 3:13pm

I agree a smaller crate works better but at this point she may have lost that natural desire to have a clean space. I would put newspapers down and gradually reduce it to just one newspaper. At her age she will still occasionaly have accidents. I don't consider them really reliable until about 1 1/2 or 2 years.

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Permalink Reply by Juno on November 27, 2012 at 3:16pm

if she's not used to using pee pads, she's going to think it's a toy just as you mentioned. As others have said, put her back in the crate when you leave. When you come back, first thing: potty. wait until she's closer to being potty trained before giving her more freedom when you're gone. Set her up for success. Once you know shes a little better, when you're home, try a few times leaving her in the pen and you walk away into another room(out of sight) and see how she does then for maybe an hour. This can help her work her way back up to freedom when you're gone. Does she have accidents when you're home? Does she signal when she needs to go potty? Also, are the areas that she potty in in her pen cleaned with the cleaners that takes the smell away? if not, that may also be why she keeps going in the same place when you're gone.

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Permalink Reply by Dayna on November 27, 2012 at 4:04pm

Thanks y'all. I have her trained very well outside of her pin. He always signals to be let out and only has accidents every once in a while if I am not around to see her go to the door. Which is very rare. Her only problem is in her pin. It's just very frustrating to come home every time and have an accident waiting. And I don't like to keep her in her crate except at night because it is so small. Would you suggest maybe making the pin a little smaller? Because it is adjustable.

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Permalink Reply by Megan McGuire on November 27, 2012 at 11:47pm

Dogs don't mind that crates are small.  I leave my dogs crates open when I'm home and often times they choose to snooze in their crates - even though they are completely free to leave it.

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Permalink Reply by Beth on November 28, 2012 at 10:20am

You can make the pen smaller, sure. Honestly the pen worked for Jack; I started out papering the whole bottom of it, then the half he was using, then got it down to just a few sheets of paper. But he didn't like going in the pen and tried to hold it.

So if you don't want to crate her you can try taking a few panels out of the pen.

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