My pup keeps having accidents in his crate during the night. We can't figure out a fix. Are we missing something?

Hello Ed,

I've read through all of the Q&A on crate training and didn't see this specifically addressed so my apologies if it is, perhaps you could direct me to where it's already been answered. I'm sure you receive a million questions!

We have two dogs a 4-month old Cairn terrier, who is doing VERY well. We've had him almost 4 weeks. We're crate training, and he makes it through the night, goes outside on command, and is just bridging the gap between knowing that he's supposed to go outside and knowing how to TELL us he needs to go outside. He seems to pick up on this whole housebreaking gig with little to no issue. The only problem is that we're not sure he knows he should ONLY go outside. We do catch the occasional accident if we get a little off schedule ? is there a good way to let him know that's not acceptable now that he's getting older? Currently we just ignore the bad bathroom behavior and praise like crazy for the good bathroom behavior.

Our other dog is a 10-week old Wheaten terrier. We've had him for almost two weeks. He is well, progressing, I guess. The problem is he seems to go a LOT - he'll go outside, and then 30 minutes later inside. We're crate training him as well, and he's slowly becoming acclimated to his crate as HIS space. The problem is, he seems to find it fairly easy to 'go' in his crate, so we're not sure if crate training is effective or if we just need to give it more time. The worst time is at night - our schedule is:

7pm - dinner
7:30pm - 30-45 minutes walk
8:30-9:30 - supervised playtime around the house
9:30 - in the crates for resting
11 or 11:30 - out one more time before my husband and I go to bed

We usually have no accidents during this time from either dog. We then take the crates upstairs with us. The Cairn promptly lies down and sleeps until 6 or 7am, no issues. The Wheaten, however, will take longer to fall asleep - and then anywhere from 1am to 5am we will wake up to fussing, yipping, and the horrible smell of poo filling our bedroom. Sometimes this happens twice in a night. There's just no warning that it's about to come, at least not one that would wake us up. He gets worked up about having made a mess, and then hops up and down in his crate, spreading feces around the floor of the crate and all over his feet (and if you're familiar with Wheaten pups, there's a lot of hair to get things caught in). For the last two weeks, we've been up in the wee morning hours giving our dog a bath, hosing out the inside of the crate, and then trying to catch another hour or two of sleep before we have to go to work.

Both dogs have had regular rounds of deworming and negative fecals, so no health issues that we can think of?

Any suggestions? Are we doing something wrong? Will he outgrow this if we keep plugging away? I know it's early days, but my fear is that we're missing the boat somewhere and this will continue as the dog grows - if we can course correct now, I want our pup to be happy and I'd like for husband to stop threatening to smother the little guy with a pillow (he kids!!).

Thanks for any advice you have time to impart!
Erica

Thank you for your response.

His stool is always pretty “soft” – not runny, but not completely solid, either. Maybe like peanut butter consistency?

We’ve had him checked for worms because of the consistency, he’s been through three rounds of dewormer, two with the breeder and one with us. His fecals have come back clear, and he has a healthy appetite and is gaining weight.

We feed him Nutro Max Puppy – same as what the breeder fed. We’ve bumped up their evening feeding time to 5:30 or 6pm, hoping he has time to digest fully – but even with a later feeding time, he always went at least once before bed, sometimes twice.

His crate is a coated wire crate (I think similar to what most pet supply stores sell) with a puppy divider and a plastic tray in the bottom. We were giving him a tied up towel to cuddle with at night, but he makes such a mess, we’ve been taping down a “pee pad” at night so that it’s easier to clean at 4am.

According to the breeder, he was set up in an enclosed setting at night, but had play space and room to roam during the day (exercise pen with other puppies).

Erica