Potty Train A Puppy

Question
Hi I have a 9 weeks old Shih Tzu which I just bought home a week ago. I am trying to potty train her. I read many books and many websites and my puppy training class trainer, all recommended the crate training. However both my husband and I work full time and I am just not so sure if it is good to keep her in the crate for 10 hours a day.
The books and websites said it's not ok. But my trainer said she will be fine. I can't stay home for a week to train her. Can you give me suggestions on what to do?

Answer
I think you should follow your trainer's advice.  However, I also think it's unrealistic to expect a pup this young to "hold it" that long - they simply can't.  You will probably need to hire a dog walker to make sure you get the pup out for a potty break or two during the day.  At age 9 weeks, if your pup is awake, she can only hold her bladder for about 3 hours, if that.  It may take more than a week to train her anyway, so opt for a friend or dog walker and you should be ok.  Do not let anyone punish her for mistakes - that will only make her afraid to eliminate in front of humans.  What you really need to do when training a dog is to supervise them whenever they are out of their crate, crate them whenever you can't supervise them, reward success ("good pee" or "good potty", and even a treat now and then), and ignore failures (the failures are your fault for not supervising the puppy LOL).
I do want to commend you for taking your puppy to class so early, and for wanting to train and socialize her properly.  High five!!!