Crating puppies at nightime

Question
We purchased 2 Yorkie pups at 15 weeks old, male and female. They are now almost 17 weeks. They were in a 48" by 48" puppy pen with no other pups. The male is 1.8 pounds and the female is 2 pounds. They are doing great training on the pee pads and they pretty much will go on command. The breeder told me because they are so small I needed to have food  and water, mixed with karo syrup, available to them at all times even in their cage at night. My concern was nightime and rightly so. So far I have found them crispy and sweet because they played and jumped in the water.It is a bowl that fastens to the cage. Every morning I have to clean it up from urine and deoderize it. Now the female will at times go in and use it as her toilet. My question is can I partition them to a smaller area in the cage and eliminate the food and water or partition them away from one another as they will fight sometimes at night. Because they weigh so little can I expect them to hold it for 8 hours?

Answer
Terri -

Crack me up - crispy and sweet - though I am certain it's no fun to clean up.

My recommendation would be to make the space smaller and take away the food and water at night. As long as they have plenty of time during the day to eat and get hydrated they should be fine.

Their little bladders are correspondingly the same size as other dogs (though I would guess these are "teacups". The problem with that is that they have been bred to be unnaturally small.

They are old enough now that they should be holding it pretty well.

Are they really fighting at night or just raising heck and snarling, etc ??  If they are making someone yelp, I would separate them.

Good luck with your tiny sticky furballs !

-Beth