Hi Guys, I need some advice on toiletting in the crate.  The last few weeks Shadow has been occasionally going to the toilet in his crate.  Each time he does I clean it thoroughly to make sure there is no smell left.  He was being let out of the crate every 2-2.5 hrs and was coping with that... but now we are coming home to accidents, we have changed it now so he is let out every 1.5-2 hrs... but again yesterday we had the same issue.  He is 14 weeks old so I understand he cant hold for long but he seems to be getting worse rather than better.
I make sure I am up 3 hrs before I go to work so he can run around and play... he gets fed 2 hours before I go to work and during that time he goes to the toilet multiple times. When he is being let out we are making sure he does go to the toilet.

Do I put in puppy pads for him to go on in his crate or am I telling him that I want him to go in his crate by doing that?  I also dont think the crate is big enough to clearly have a toiletting end and a playing/sleeping end. I have also taken the water out of his crate (he get a drink when we let him out)

Any advice would be great thankyou.

Don't put anything in the crate, no towels, bedding, pee pads, nothing that could absorb it up and make him more comfortable. He needs to be uncomfortable if he pees in his crate. He should have just enough room in his crate to stand up, turn around, and lay down, nothing more. Use a divider if the crate is too large, even a large box will do. You don't want him having a place to pee or poop and then be able to stay away from it.

To clean use natures miracle, or even better white vinegar!

He is very young still, make sure you are taking him out a lot, and keep track, like a chart, it really helps to see where you may be going wrong.

It takes a lot of taking them out and a lot of patience but he'll get the hang of it!

I have a similar issue with our Luna (12 weeks old now). She's absolutely amazing in the crate we have in our bedroom, falls asleep right away and sleeps through the night - most nights, occassionally she'll wake us up in the middle of the night, if she needs to go out.

She also really loves her crate in our family room, we keep it open and she just goes there and lays down or plays with her toys (we even sometimes close the door and she's fine with that). However, it's enough for us to leave the room for her to start going crazy. If we leave her for two hours, we're going back to soiled crate, Luna whining and banging against the walls of the crate. And we do make sure she had play time and potty time before putting her in the crate. What may be an even bigger problem, she not only pees but also poos in that crate. And she's one of those puppies that like to eat their poo. We make sure she doesn't do it when we're with her, but have no control over it when we're out.

I'll actually try out your tips, Balonsmom. I will remove the blanket from the crate, assume I should also take the toys out, and will see how that goes. So I'll be back with an update.

Ok, so unfortunately removing everything from the crate didn't quite work. I only tried it twice over the weekend, so I realize that may not say much, but Luna gets much more anxious, when she doesn't have her blanket and toys in the crate. To the point when she won't stop crying even if we're still in the room. And when we left her for an hour, she did her regular thing with soiling the crate and I had to spent almost 30 min. trying to clean up all the nooks and crannies of the crate, as she's spread the poo all over it.

So we decided to kind of start over. We leave the blanket and one toy, give her a treat and close the crate. We then stay in the room and watch tv, while she winds down - she now only whines for about 5 min and than calms down (most of the times). Then we start leaving the room for 1-2 min, up to 5 min. So far so good, though can't move beyond 5 min. yet. I guess it will take time, but hopefully within a few weeks she'll be able to spend 1 to 2 hours in the crate while we're out.

We're having the same issue with Shadow, she poops in her crate pretty much nightly. I try to get up in the middle of the night, but I've been sleeping through my alarms lately. It doesn't always help anyway, sometimes we'll take her out twice during the night and she'll still poop in there. And then she lays in it and goes back to sleep...  

We're trying to teach her that she needs to make noise to let us know she needs to go out. We have bells in the crate, but she still just pops a squat and goes in there. It's pretty awesome washing a 60 lb puppy every morning...

Yeah, I just tried imagining Luna at 50lb pooping in her crate (I'm kind of thinking she won't get any bigger, though I might get surprised). Does not sound like fun. Josh does most of the bathing right now, while for me the real big issue is cleaning up the crate. When she gets all crazy her paws go all over the crate and I'm the one trying to get rid of all the poop.

Question - did you think/try/consider a veterinarian behaviorist for Shadow? I have no clue if that may help, but maybe they'd have some good ideas/approaches? We are actually thinking of trying to find one to work with Izzy. She has issues with strange dogs, which makes walking her a bit problematic.