My Blizz

Question
Hi my husband is a amputee from the war and 3 weeks ago we
Siberian husky from a breeder.  We want to register possibly for a companion dog in the future so we want to train her the best we can.  She is my first dog and his second but due to his injury I am her primary caregiver.  I have 4 kids and a stay at home mother.  I have done research online, read books, enrolled her (Blizz) in obedience classes starting today.  I am not letting her out of my sight so therefore I have had her 3 weeks and she has only had 1 accident in the house.  I have her on a strict 3 meals a day at the same time and I pull it up after 20 minutes.  I keep a diary and she has two major issues.  She will not get any food or water after 6 PM and I will walk her twice around the block and she will pee and poop before I go to bed around 12 am.  She will wet herself in her kennel and I get up every 2 hours overnight and she still pees on herself early in the morning around 3 am.  She also still howls all night and I do mean all night with maybe 1 or 2 30 minute intervals of silence a night.  I am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong and I have no clue.  HELP!  I will get through this I just thought maybe you have a solution.  I do not get much sleep a night between my 8 month year old and my puppy but I can handle that.  I just would rather get the messes down to the minimum so I do not have to go through all the cleaning her up every morning.  The crate isn't too big she lays in her pee.  Help me....lol........

Answer
It sounds like it may be some separation anxiety of being in the crate.  Most dogs will howl and complain some and you just have to ignore that, but I'm wondering if she is "freaking out" some in there and loosing bladder control.  My suggestion would be to make sure that the crate is near you (perhaps in the bedroom with you) and that you try to make it as comfortable and rewarding as possible to be there.  That she's not separated from you, just that's her bed and everyone is going to sleep.  Otherwise, if she is consistently urinating in the crate around 3, your job becomes to take her out at 2.  :)  You didn't mention how old she is, but I would guess she's probably around 12 weeks of age at this point, which means she should be able to hold it for about 4 hours, but some dogs are a little different.  Unfortunately, puppies are tough and you will be short on sleep for a bit, but she should grow out of it.

If you are keeping the crate in your room and trying to get her out before she urinates, and it's still not working, write back and we can look at other options. . . this is just my best guess so far from what you've written.