Dog wont go to the bathroom alone.

Question
We got a 6 month old miniture Chihuahua from a lady and she told us it was crate trained. We found out the hard way that she was not house trained. She will not go outside by herself and go to the bathroom. We have another older male Chihuahua, 2 yrs, that goes out with her, but she refuses to go to the bathroom without my wife or myself being outside with her. We have to walk around the house with her for anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes before she will go. If I just put her out the door and don't go out with her, she will stay by the door and whine. How can I make her go out and potty by herself ?

Answer
Well, I'm sure you know being crate trained is different from being housetrained.

First of all, at 6 months, she's still a puppy.  Anytime a dog goes to live in new surroundings, it will take a while for the dog to adjust to new rules and routines.

One suggested method would be to keep her crated; after you feed her, take her outside for a reasonable amount of time.  If she doesn't go, bring her back in and put her  back in her crate.  If she is truly crate trained, she will not go in her crate.  Then a little while later, 20  minutes or so, take her directly outside again and give her another opportunity.  If she doesn't go, repeat going back in the crate, and so on.  Sooner or later, she WILL have to go and at that time, you will praise, praise, praise.  You may need to continue this until she becomes more comfortable going outside.

I'm also including other documents on housebreaking that may offer suggestions you haven't tried:

http://www.marinhumanesociety.org/Behavior/Handouts/Housetraining.pdf  http://www.gaylecousineau.com/divadogtraining/hb_shelter_dog.pdf  
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/retrain-dog.pdf     
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/pup-housetrain.pdf