The Case of the Crappy Crate: Klee Works on Housetraining

When Klee first was dropped off at the emergency vet she was unable to stand, star-gazing, with a very serious head injury. They didn't think she would make it but she was given pain meds and then it was watch and wait.

She was a little better the next day so she was moved to the shelter hospital where she could continue to be observed. This meant she was in a crate sized area. In fact, in the first photo I saw of Klee, she was in this space and this was where she spent all her time in the shelter since she was just there in the medical annex about 10 days.

Klee in the corner of her hospital enclosure

It's great that she didn't get stuck in a dog run while recovering from a head injury, but this also meant that she was pooping and peeing in a fairly small area. Not good. I mean, it's obvious that it's not good to hang out next to one's toilet, but the other problem is that the dog learns to get over that natural instinct to not live where they poop. It makes house training more difficult. Not impossible but definitely more difficult.

Unfortunately I didn't help things when Klee arrived, because I put her in a crate that was pretty roomy for a 9 pound dog. Add to that rainy weather that is not ideal for house training and you end up with a crate full of poo. And did I learn after the first crate poo? Nope, she went on to poop several times, overnight, during the day while I was at work - basically practicing the behavior before I got off my lazy butt and made some changes to her crate.

Finally, earlier this week I dug out the never used metal crate divider from the nether regions of my garage. This handy square of metal mesh with hooks on two sides can be put into a wire crate to make the depth of the crate smaller. I wanted to give her enough room to turn around and lie down comfortably, but not enough room for her to move to one side of the crate to poop and the other side to sleep. That meant the 24" deep crate was cut in half to make it Klee sized.

"What the heck happened to the rest of my crate?!" 

"Hmm... Not sure I like what you've done with the place."

Getting a feel for her half sized crate. She's not impressed.

And in case you are feeling sorry for poor Klee, squished into 1/2 a crate, Salinas is demonstrating that even she, the size of 2 Klees, can fit inside. She can't lie down but she can squeeze in.

Of course, that was the easy part. The not so fun part is I also needed to more than double the amount of trips that I'm taking outside with her - rain or shine - and then ALWAYS have a handful of high value treats in my pocket for when she actually does go outside. The goal is to not let her have the chance to have any accidents inside. This really sucks for me because it means I get to stand out in the wind and rain along with Klee and watch to make sure she has done her business.

So what are the results of these changes we've made? Her crate has been poop and pee free for the two days/nights since the change was made and she's caught on to the treats after she pees or poos so she is going outside much quicker now.

I think the most important lesson I've learned in dog training is that about 99% of the time if there's a training problem, it's the human who needs to be doing more work - not the dog. This was definitely the case with Klee's house training so I guess I should smack myself with a newspaper for messing up, put on my rain coat and take poor Klee outside for another potty break.