Since switching to a larger crate, our pup has started urinating in the crate again. Is it too big? Should we start taking him out more?

Hi Cindy,

We have a 5 month old German shepherd puppy named Gunnar who we are currently crate training. We have your DVDs on establishing pack structure and basic obedience training as well as the Common house breaking mistakes eBook. Using this information we were able to train Gunnar fairly quickly using a small crate. We only had to clean it up twice due to accidents in the first month. However when we moved him to a large crate when he no longer fit into the small one he has been urinating in the crate. He still knows to defecate outside, but we feel the urination is ploy to get us to take him outside. We do not correct him at all for this. We only interact with him outside now even though he was spending some time with us upstairs on leash. I guess we have just reverted to treating him like we did in the beginning. We feed a mostly protein no grain all natural dog food (kibble). We have checked him for an Urinary tract infection. We have chosen not to continue with his Vaccines after reading some articles on your site. We exercise him twice a day for at least 10 minutes. He has a lot of room in the crate and I'm wondering if it's too large for him. Do you think this is something he just needs to get over or should we be taking him out more? Here is our schedule for taking him out + or - a few minutes.

6:15 am
8:15 am
12:15 pm
2:30 pm
7:15 pm
10:15pm

We really appreciate any advice.

Thank you for all the hard work you and Ed put into educating us about Dogs.

Rich, Patty and Gunnar