seashell

Hi, we use one of those carrier types as a crate, like this: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Dog-Crate-Internati...A1%7C240%3A1318 It has worked well for us, and you could use it to take your puppy to the vet or car trips etc, although if you decide to buy one which is big enough for a full grown labrador I doubt you'd be wanting to lug it around everywhere! The only problem with this type of crate is i think if it's a hot night, they get hot in there, as there isn't as much air flow as the metal wire type crates. As secretKei said, perhaps you could try get a cheap second hand smaller crate while your puppy is still small, then buy a big one later? Or else you'd need to section it off until he grows into it! Good luck with your puppy!

Hi again, thank you so much for your replies! It seems that we just have to be more persistant and keep up with what we're doing, but it's great to hear that they can learn just by taking them out the same door each time etc. Mini_M I do treat him almost everytime he goes outside, but I think we don't make a big enough fuss and perhaps we need to give him something really really tasty instead of his regular treats - thanks for the suggestion will certainly try that! pmiller, if I remember I'll let you know how I go! Your cav sounds like toffee, everytime he is near our door I get so excited, but really he is always just wandering around there not needing to pee

Hi all, sorry to start another toilet training problem thread, but you guys were so helpful with my first one that I thought I'd try my luck and ask again. Our 4 month old cavalier toffee will toilet outside if we take him out at the right times. He sleeps in a crate at night in our room and scratches the sides if he needs to go, so that's all fine. When we are at work or otherwise not home, we confine him to our kitchen with newspapers and he generally does his business there. The problem is when we let him roam the place while we're home, we generally only let him roam after he has peed, and preferably pooed too. But anyway, if he needs to toilet again he will just do it on the carpet or basically anywhere he wants to. We do clean it up with special pet pee cleaner. We've just opened up the kitchen area (before it was gated so when he roamed he couldn't get back in) hoping if he really needs to go he will go back to his newspapers, but he doesn't. Preferably we'd love for him to just go to the back door and wait, possibly bark or scratch the door so we know he wants to go out to toilet. Is there any way to train him to do so?? My ideas were to firstly walk him to the door each time (i have to admit we carry him most of the time), possibly make him sit at the door? He's actually rarely keen to go out, if i walk him out without a leash he usually tries to turn around and go back in! Unfortunately we can't get a dog door yet, because just after the door there are steps which he can't get down so we need to carry him. Hubby is thinking of a solution to this, possibly a ramp but we were hoping when he's fully grown he can make it down the stairs... but for now a doggy door won't help cos he'd just go out and be stuck. Sorry about the long post, any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!

Oh its exciting!!! Looking pretty much now, but wanting one in about July'ish. Different breeder (a few things I didn't like about last one), another girl and RED AND TAN!!!! Wow, I'm really excited for you! And you've just been through Halle so you should be very experienced at puppy rearing lol. What colour is Halle, is she red and tan as well? It might be awhile away, but can't wait to see pics, lol! Good luck in finding your puppy, puppy shopping is fun! (and stressful... )

Hi again, yes it is unbelievable how much work puppies are, toffee is still a lot of work at 14wks old and still not fully toilet trained, argh!! It sure is like having a human baby, er not that I've had one but hubby now thinks he can't handle us having a baby, sigh! I think for people like us, who have cats or even other dogs, the job is even harder cos we have these socialisation and controlling the different pet issues! Aww yeah singapuras are very cheeky, they can jump almost anywhere and they are almost like dogs too, chimpy greets us at the door and always wants to be around us and sitting on our laps! One of the reasons we got toffee was actually because we wanted company for chimpy, and we thought he was too in-your-face for another cat. I love so many breeds of cats too I wish I could have sooo many more! I love ragdolls too, and I'd also like to have a british, burmese, tiffanie, another fold... the list is endless! That's so funny that Arnie anounces his arrival over the baby gate, lol! Sorry I don't have much more help for you, but I think in time they should learn to live with each other. Especially since you are keeping the baby gate there and the cats always have their own space! Btw, arnie is a beautiful cat! I can relate to you and the pet shop thing, I am against buying from pet stores, but one day mid last year I saw the cutest cavalier pup while I was buying cat food! I fell in love, and that particular pet shop doesn't keep their puppies in cages but have them out back and sometimes on lead wondering the shop, so I played with him a lot which made me like him more! But at that time I wasn't even thinking of getting a puppy so I left. I couldn't stop thinking about him though, so the next day I rang the shop but he was sold... that was probably what started me looking for another cav and I did end up buying from a reg breeder, but hey if that puppy had not been sold there is a big chance I would have gone back for him... so don't beat yourself up too much, it's hard to resist puppies and it sounds like max is doing well and you're giving him a great home!

Hi Maximum, I just wanted to reply and say you're a lot like me, i read your worming post too and I too thought "how hard can a puppy be, just like a kitten huh" how wrong we were!! They are sooo different! I also love cats and am more of a cat person, but decided I'd give a puppy a shot, lol. I have a 1yo singapura Chimpy but he is very bold and playful, so he didn't take long to get used to toffee (our 14wk old cavalier), and he is very curious so never just ran and hid away from him. I don't leave them alone when we aren't home, they are seperated. While we are home, they chase each other like crazy, toffee keeps biting and jumping on chimpy but chimpy always wins the fight. Toffee also licks chimpy's bum a lot, I've been told it might be a sign of submission, not sure, but it looks gross! So yeah, I don't have any more experience than that so not sure how'd you introduce your two raggies, sorry... but as other posters have said, I've read as long as the cats have high places to jump when they've had enough, they should feel safe? Also at the start, chimpy was much less afraid/annoyed at toffee when he was asleep, it might be a good chance to let your cats go up for a sniff or to get used to being around max when max is sleeping? Shoemonster - you have a scottish fold, I LOVE folds! I have one, Teara, but she lives with my parents cos she didn't get along with chimpy But she loves it at my parents place so I'm glad she's happy even though I miss her heaps...

How exciting!! Another puppy, I think you are so brave after having one puppy i'm not sure i'd do it over again, lol! When are you going to start looking, are you going to the same breeder as Halle? Boy or girl? Same colour?

Just wanted to drop by and say a big thank you to everyone who has replied this thread! Crating overnight has been going well with Toffee, even from the first day he did not whine much at all! Also he is now sleeping through until about 5 or 6am before he needs to pee which is quite good, and after that he will go back into the crate and sleep until we wake up. He does whine a bit if I crate him during the day, esp if he would rather play but i only ever crate him for 10-15 mins at a time during the day usually for toilet training reasons. I think ScrappyDoo's suggestion of varying it up a bit is a great idea, I'll try to do that. Because normally first thing when I wake i take him out to pee, but this morning he wasn't whining when i woke so I brushed my teeth etc first and he did whine a little because he expected me to take him out first. Anyway again thanks to you all!

Thanks Kelpie_Pup, I really appreciate it and for all the others. If it weren't for you guys I prob would have given up and resigned to a life of newspapers Anyway earlier on I took Toffee out, and as per The Spotted Devil's advice I changed the spot to a very boring corner where I could pretty much section him off. I didn't make eye contact but of course kept glancing down to see if he did it. Nothing. So I put him in the crate, went back 10 mins later and opened the door and he was asleep and didn't come out. So I waited until he woke up and went straight outside to the same spot, and... he peed!! I praised him like a mad woman, I'm sure he gave me weird looks Afterwards I played with him a little in the yard. After another nap later I took him to the same spot and he peed again, yay! But I just had a shower and when I came out he had peed in the pen again - my fault of course. I'm trying to write down his feed/pee/sleep times see if I can find a rough pattern lol. Lets hope I can be more vigilant and better at predicting when he wants to go. I'll be excited when he does his first poo outside Thanks again, you guys are the best!!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I've cleaned up all his pen area with urine remover and not placed down the newspaper (though he has already peed once in the same spot w/o paper, sigh). After he gets dinner, I'll take him out and try all the suggestions. The problem is, I don't play with him but he easily entertains himself outside - he finds a leaf or stick to chew, or he chews on my pants, or he may just lie on my foot - anything but pee. I will def try the crate, though he isn't fully crate trained yet he will cry a lot if i close the door for more than a few minutes at the moment... otherwise confining him to a small area outside until he pees is a great idea if I can think of a way to do it, and also my husband thought that moving the whole pen outside would work too like settrlvr suggested, so if all else fails we'll have to do this hopefully tomorrow! How long in general do i wait outside until i bring him in to crate? I have been staying 1/2hr+ at the moment. I thought puppies couldn't hold it in but apparently Toffee can! It's also hard to know whether he even needs to pee. Thanks again, you guys are great!

Hi all, I picked up my new cavalier pup yesterday, we've named him Toffee! He is a big cutie. Thanks to everyone who gave me overnight crate training advice, it worked well! Except he cried at about 5am, didn't need to toilet think he just wanted to play. So we thought, it's close enough to morning and we put him and his open crate back in the pen, then went back to sleep Anyway I have another problem... Toffee just doesn't pee/poo outside. The only exception being last night at 3am when he cried in his crate, I took him out and he peed - must have been rather busting. Other times though, he just won't do it, and I've waited outside for a long time. I take him out at the times I've read - after he wakes up, after eating/drinking, after playing... Not long after I put him back in his pen, sometimes immediately, he will pee/poo on the newspaper! I think he is just used to doing it in the pen because the breeder had all the puppies in a pen too. Also perhaps he just sees going outside as playtime. Any ideas on how to break this habit? I've tried to move some of the soiled newspaper outside so it has the smell, but he just started to shred it, sigh. Should I rely on the crate more, eg if he doesn't do it outside, bring him back inside and lock him in the crate, then take him out again in 15mins? Another friend suggested not putting newspaper at all as it encourages him to do it there, but sometimes we won't be home so ideally he'll know that is his backup. And I think he'd just do it on that end of his pen regardless of whether there's newspaper there... Absolutely any ideas would be much appreciated, me and my husband are pretty clueless, it's our first puppy! Thanks!!

Thanks again everyone, only two more days until I pick up my puppy now so all the advice is greatly appreciated! Big thanks to acm_02 for sharing your recent experience and pictures - your puppy is adorable! I like the name ruby, I considered that name if I got a girl, and maybe if I got a ruby cav I was wondering whether to make my puppy go in to sleep or lure him in with treats, so what you did with waiting for her to sleep and carrying her in is a good idea if my pup won't go in himself. We have quite a small crate to begin with, it's my cat carrier so hopefully it's small enough that I don't need to section it off. When he grows bigger we'll get a bigger crate of course! Thanks for everyone's good luck wishes too, I hope it all goes well, I'm so excited!!

Wow i can't thank everyone enough for their replies, it's helped me a lot! So the general consensus is shut the door from night one which is good. I was afraid it would be too soon but if you guys have done it successfully I feel more confident to try it and not give in to the crying and let him out! For those who woke up at night to toilet puppy, did you wait until they cried/whimpered then let them out, or did you set an alarm and wake up yourself to take pup out?

Thank you so much everyone for your replies and advice, I'm so glad I found this forum! I've only ever had cats so very new to this puppy thing! Lucky I'm picking up him on a Friday - it seems like we may not get much sleep the first few nights Thanks again and I'm open to any other tips LuvMyCav - will check out the cavalier section, I don't have many pics though since I don't have my baby yet!!

Thank you both for your fast replies! Still love to hear about what others who crate trained did too! mrmac, my puppy is a blenheim cavalier boy, he will be 8 weeks old this Wednesday. He is yet to be named, but at the moment Peanut is looking likely

Hi all, I'm new to these forums, and actually to having a dog at all! I am about to be a new mum, picking up my pup this Friday, very excited! Anyway I have done a lot of reading and preparing for my puppy, and I have decided I'd like to try crate training. I think I get how to introduce it etc etc (at least I've READ how to lol). My question is, what do I do at night?? I would like to keep the crate in our bedroom, but at first I don't think I can close the door yet (or can I?) so I am afraid he'll come out and pee on our carpet. Or actually, that he won't stay in there at all. Would it be ok to wake up once in the middle of the night to take him out to pee? The alternative is to keep the crate in the kitchen inside the pen, with newspapers all around but... I'd rather him sleep in our room I'd really appreciate anyone's experiences and what they did about this, thanks so much in advance!!