Angelique,

I agree with you on this, since pups do sleep about 18 hours a day anyway. But with my two girls I had a flexible schedule for training my older shepherd and a relative let the pup out in the middle of the day for me this past year. I'd rather have the pup have accidents in the crate rather than have accidents all over the house or in the kitchen. JMO

They can hire a dog walker for about $10-15 per half hour walk if needed during the day.


Kimberly

If only we worked just a few hours a day.
You don't want to keep her crated up in an area small enough for her to have to pee and then lay down in it. What I would do is have a crate for her but leave the door open. Then put down a potty pad or newspaper which gives her a specific area to pee (which is inevitable she will need to as such a young age). You DO NOT want your pup to learn to pee in the same area they sleep or housebreaking will be MUCH harder. I've seen problems with this from puppies that have been bought from pet stores where they are in cages and just go to the bathroom wherever.
Then use a little gate to enclose her so she doesn't have free roam. You'll still need to work really hard at making sure she's encouraged to go outside when you're home but this will take care of the "while you're gone" part.
Hope that helps!
As a side note, I did some fostering for a 2 week old puppy until he was about 9 weeks old. I used a big dog crate which split in half and butted it together.....one side was to sleep, the other had a potty pad and some newspaper. At just 4-5 weeks old, he learned to walk across from one side to the other to go to the bathroom and then go back. It works!

Sorry, I forgot to mention this in my previous post.....as a general number to go by.....dogs generally can hold it for however many months old they are plus one. So a 10 week old puppy shouldn't be expected to hold it for more than 3 - 4 hours (2 1/2 months old).

Thanks for the reply Audrey. 3-4 hours is about how long she can hold it when I am home with her. She does make it all the way through the night(from about 10:30pm - 6:00 am). She is confined to one room of the house during the day. I have tried putting down puppy pads and paper, but she shreds them long before she ever has a chance to go on them.

figure the pup will be able to hold it 8 hours by around 4 mos. of age, iirr.

you really need to take a week off from work and take her outside every hour or so. that way, after a solid week of only going outside, she may get it that inside isn't the place to go.

unfortunately, you've conditioned her to think that going inside is OK. therefore, you are setting yourself up for a lot of trouble with housebreaking.

Adam, i don't know how much they charge but there's always info for dog walkers and stuff like that at the vets and other dog places, maybe that's your best bet,
AL

I had a litter of puppies that did the same thing...just tore the stuff to shreds at first. It took a couple of days but pretty soon, they were tearing only the corners and actually using the main part of it. Do you give her toys or something else to play with? Maybe that would deter her from going for the potty pad/paper.
Don't give up!

Have you thought about taking your dog to work with you in a crate and leaving the dog in the car (as long as it doesn't get hot)...or even talking to your boss about it to see if the dog could stay in a crate under your desk? I did this with Remi and it worked really well. He got socialized, potty trained, and crate trained all in one fail swoop. And it did wonders for employee morale during the day. Everyone wanted to take him for a quick walk to get away for 5-10 minutes.

I do leave her toys to play with during the day. She has a kong, a rope tug, and a stuffed pig. I will look into getting a dog walker. I also really like the idea of taking her to work with me. I'll have to see what my boss, and the building maintenance people say about having a puppy going potty here.