soiling crate

Question
I have a 12 week old  male bichon who is soiling his crate at night and some days during the day when I run a few errands. I do not leave him more than 3 hours in his crate when I am gone and I do take him out before putting him in. At night, his last feeding is at 6:00 and no water after 8:00. He will do his business outside after his feeding and will pee at 11:00 before I put him up for the night, and him STILL soils his crate. He doesn't seem to care and just lies in it! I have given him enough space in his crate to stand, turn around and lay back down, tried with bedding/without bedding, putting food bowl in crate, but NOTHING has work! He keeps soiling with pee only and pee/poop. He does his business outside during the day. We take him out every 2 hours.I am really getting tired of cleaning him once and sometimes twice a day! PLEASE HELP!!

Answer
Well this is a tough one Christine. You are doing everything right.

It might be the food you are feeding is making it harder for him to hold it. It could be a congenital problem- one he was born with. Most dogs do not soil their crates but he is by all means not the only one that does.

Instead of crating him you might want to get one of those wire playpens and set it up in the corner somewhere on the kitchen floor. That way he has more room, doesn't feel cramped and may be more reluctant to soil that way. You might want to feed him a bit earlier also and then take him out. Canned foods make it harder for them to have a more solid stool and hold it so if he is eating any canned you might want to back off of that.

I wouldn't take him out every two hours either. He is not getting the idea that he has to hold it in between times that you take him since he is always being encouraged to go to the bathroom.

I really don't know if there is anything else you can do about it except keep trying. Putting him in the playpen will also keep him more occupied and allow him to not lay in his mess if he does go.

Make sure you have puppy safe toys in there for him to play with. Another thing is that is sounds like instead of the crate being his haven it has become punishment to him. So it doesn't matter to him if he soils it.

You might want to Google potty training problems for dogs and see if you can find some other ideas.

I hope you can. If I find any I will revise a follow up and send the links to you.
Good luck!