# My puppy pees in his crate as SOON as he wakes up from a nap!



## taylorp

Help!

My 8 week old boxer male pees in his crate as soon as he wakes up from a nap. The second I hear him make a noise I run to his crate to take him outside, but he has already gone to the bathroom before I can even make it up there.

We had originally lined his crate with pee pads when we first got him, but then realized that it was probably just confusing him between going inside and out, so we recently took out the pee pads and sectioned off his crate so that he only has enough room to stand, lie, and turn around. We take him out after he eats, after every nap, and anytime he shows signs of wanting to relieve himself. When he does go outside, we give him a treat straight after and praise his enthusiastically. 

Since we only just recently took out the pads and sectioned off his crate, is this normal behavior for the first couple days while he gets used to the new system?


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## Cracker

If his naps are usually say 20 minutes then go and WAKE him at 15 minutes and take him outside. If he does it in the morning and he usually goes til 5 am, set the alarm and go wake him and 445 and take him out. He's 8 weeks old which means he has no ability to keep his urine in, the muscles etc necessary are not mature enough. You need to anticipate it for a while and then gradually work up to longer periods. 
Anticipation is key.


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## taylorp

I get what you're saying and that's definitely something I can work with, but alot of the time his naps can range anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours, so it's a little hard to predict. Regarding night time sleep schedules, he's all over the place. For example, last night we put him to bed around 10:30 and he woke up at 1am. After I took him outside to potty, he fell back asleep until about 6:30am. The night before, we put him to bad at the same time and he slept all through the night until 6:30. The night before that...same time to bed, woke up around 3am, slept until 8, etc. etc. 

Everyone keeps telling me not to worry so much and that I shouldn't expect significant results in such a short amount of time and with him being so young (we've only had him about two weeks), but I still can't help but stress that I'm doing something wrong to confuse him, therefore damaging the whole potty training process in the long run.

So...opinions? Legitimate concerns or simply paranoia?


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## Cracker

Legitimate concerns AND some simple paranoia. LOL

We are human and individual, dogs are dogs and individual. Sometimes you have to experiment a bit with the routines to try and find something that works for each individual. You won't ruin your pup, try a few different things and see how it goes. It will be much easier as he matures some physically and CAN hold it better...gives you more time to get him out there!


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