I have a 14 week old male doberman, he pees in the crate when we are not home When we are home, and he is out of the crate he lets us know he has to go outside by scratching at the door. The crate is not to big, we do limit the water and take him out prior to leaving the house. Is this normal for his age? Should we feed him in his crate? Is their anything we should do different?

I would let the dog out more. and if possible let the dog out during the day. I feed all my dogs in crates or in there Kennel. But puppies pee in crates that is why you are crating it while you are gone. There bladders are small you can not expect the pup to hold it for a long period of time.

Hi Laura, to add to Matt’s post, here are a few more suggestions:

1.) Take in account how often he lets you know he has to go outside when you are home. If it’s every 3-4 hours, you shouldn’t leave him in the crate for any longer than that without letting him out.

2.) How often are you gone for? If you are consistently gone for longer than he can control it, he won’t learn how to control his bladder since you are never home quick enough before he loses control. Try to come home and let him out as often as possible. Also, do some “pretend trips” and put him in his crate, take a drive around the block, and then come back home and let him out to go pee. Randomly change the amount of time it takes for you to come back during these trips. You only need to do this for long enough for him to realize that you won’t ALWAYS be gone for such a long, extended period of time.

3.) Consider leaving him in the crate every now and then even when you are home. If he is always out of his crate when you are home, as soon as he gets in his crate he may realize that no one will be there to let him out so he doesn’t have any urge to hold it.

4.) In addition to making sure he eliminates right before he goes in the crate, make sure he gets LOTS of exercise right beforehand as well and then downplay your departure by not making a big deal out of it (coddling him with kisses, saying “don’t worry, we’ll be back soon”, and so on). This way his energy won’t be so high when you leave and he’ll settle in his crate faster and longer.

5.) And don’t panic, it is very normal for a puppy his age. Every puppy has a different threshold of control over his or her bladder and it’s just up to you to determine how much it is in order to determine the best crate-training routine.


Good luck! Hopefully it gets better. If not, I've got some tips I use on older puppies (6-9 months) that are sometimes useful, but those are more "last-resort" ideas when nothing else worked and they pretty much are content that the crate is the equivalent to a port-a-potty. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />