New Pom Puppy

Question
Dear Trish Inman,
  I recently bought a 8 week old Pom male. He is adorable and the new love of my life. BUT I'm having two problems. 1. being the house training during the day he does fine cause with of all my roomates there is always someone to take him out to do his duty. But at night time he pees and poops everywhere so I have to keep him in the kitchen with baby gates so he doesnt get it all over the carpet. Which then brings me to my second problem he hates being alone like a night for instance and wakes up every 2 hours barking and yapping and no-one in the house gets a good nights sleep, esp. me! Now one thing to know is I took him to the vet yesterday because he got kennel cough somehow (even though he had the shot 4 days prior!) so he is on meds but still in the process of getting better. Someone suggested to give him a little bit of baby tylenol to get him through the night, is this ok for a now 9 week old Pom. So overall I wanna know about the tylenol, what is the best way to housetrain him, how long should it take before he will be housetrained, and how do I get him to stop barking at inapropriate times! Please help I need at least 5 hours of sleep!
Thank you so much for your time!
~Emily

Answer
An 8 week old pup is like an infant.  Not even at the toddler stage of knowing what you expect from them.  They are still adjusting to their envirnment.  It is too early to expect them to be potty trained.  You can put down piddle pads and they will usually try to go on those most of the times.  They are creatures of habit and will usually go in the same place a lot of the time.  Don't expect too much from a new baby.  It may take a while for them to sleep through the night! :-)  Expect for that baby to need to get up and pee every few hours and also to eat at least for the next few weeks.
Sometimes the kennel cough vax will cause a small bout of the virus.  This is normal and will pass.  It can be helped with a SMALL amount of Robitussun.  Ask your vet.  Not any other kind than plain Robitussun; no extra letters in it.  It can be a long recovery, like a bad cold.  Sometimes you can help the baby to feel better is to run a hot shower and let him be in the bathroom with the steam.  Check with the local pet store for DOG asprin but I don't think he needs any of that, though, he should be fine with some of the cough syrup.  Bringing home a pup that young is like bringing home a small baby... it takes time to get through the baby stage. :-)
A few things that might help is to make him a bed with a heating pad ON LOW under the bedding.  Also, if your breeder is close by, you can get a small blanket or towel and rub it all over the mama/siblings and bring that home to him for that old familiar smell-if not, no big.  Give him something of yours to sleep with.  You can also give him a stuffed animal to cuddle and make sure he has lots of toys and food and water through the night.  Lastly, you might want to try (not sure if you do or not) keeping an open kennel in his area for him to go to like a cave.  They like that when they want to rest.
Good luck with him! :-) And enjoy him, next is the toddler weeks and then... teenage months!
-Trish
Gemini Poms
www.geminipoms.com