Weimaraner is housebroke but pees in crate while Im at work.

Question
My weimaraner is 3 months old and I bought her from a pet store. (I did read an article that this could be the cause of her peeing in the crate) <-then how do I get her to stop.  The crate is the right size because she can go in curl up and lay down.  I do have bedding in there because I feel so bad to take it out and her lay on the cold floor.  I take her out right before I put her in there, I come home on my lunch break (4hours).  She is house broke because she will go to the door and wait until I let her out. What's the next thing I can do for the crate thing??

Answer

Hi Becky,

I'd start with the simple stuff. Does your pup have accidents if there isn't bedding in her crate? The bedding may be absorbent enough to allow her to lay comfortably in the crate after relieving herself. Try removing the bedding, to see if that doesn't improve the situation. Once she is truly house and crate trained you can put the bedding back inside the crate.

It is indeed harder to crate train a puppy from a pet store, because at the store, they have spent weeks relieving themselves in a crate. It's also possible that the length of time your pup is spending in the crate is just a little too long. Although the rule of thumb for how long to crate a puppy is "the puppy's age in months plus one", this rule isn't cast in stone. For your particular puppy, being able to "hold it" for four hours just might not be possible, yet.

A good option to crating is to use an indoor dog pen, such as this kind:
http://www.canineconcepts.co.uk/ccp51/media/images/product_detail/savic-dog-pen-...

Another option to to use a child gate or two to section off part of a room for a containment area.

Whichever method you use, you should lay a thick layer of news paper down over the entire containment area to make clean up's easier.  In a couple of weeks, you may see that your pup is relieving itself in one particular spot in the containment area. At this time, you may be able to just lay down the newspaper in that one spot.

Continue to crate your puppy when you're home and aren't able to supervise her, so she can get to get her crate training.

Best of luck,

Patti