Crate training - question about location

[jbeck]

Hi all,

If this wins the award for the world's dumbest question, just send the certificate to my house!

Here's the scenario: we live in a 3 story home. On the ground floor is a finished basement / rec room with the sliding door to the backyard where our new pup will play, go the bathroom, etc. On the main floor is our main living room, dining room and kitchen, and on the uppermost floors are all 3 bedrooms. Question is, when we get our new pup, my wife would like the dog to sleep in the bedroom (in the kennel). I would like that as well, however I am afraid that when she needs to go out after being in the kennel, I need to initially carry her down 2 flights of stairs to the backyard. Once she can walk safely down the stairs, she still needs to go down the 2 stories to get to the backyard. I am afraid that she may not be able to hold it this long, and we are making it extra difficult for her to get outside because of where her crate is located.

We are going to be letting her out at regular intervals, and we don't care about going up and down the stairs at all, but is it ok for the puppy to have to go all that distance to get outside once being out of the crate? Or, would it be better to keep the crate downstairs by the door, so that she can immediate go right outside after being let out of the crate? That seems logical, though we hate the thought of her sleeping 2 floors below us by herself...

Can anybody share some thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!

[pointerDixie214]

having just trained a puppy, actually she is one and i am still working on some stuff, but when i potty trained her, i kept her crate fairly close to the door because until they know they are supposed to go outside, they will go whenever and whereever they need to... it only took Dixie about a week to get trained for this, so then i started letting her sleep in the bedroom. first she slept in her cage in there for about a month and then she graduated to her own bed at the foot of my bed. the first few nights i had to tie her to keep her from getting on the bed with me, but now she is just fine on the ground... in fact, i think she likes having her own bed because i am a bed hog!!! lol

[MA Jay]

jbeck-

Go ahead and crate her in your bedroom. When I create trained my Springer I had a lot farther than you have to go to bring her outside to do her business. When they are really small, just carry the pup out to where you want them to start going and place them where you want them to go the bathroom. As they get bigger ... don't delay .. go straight from the crate to the "spot" not letting her squat along the way. You may have an accident or 2 .. but if you keep in mind they go the bathroom often and you figure out the pup's schedule .. .you'll quickly have a house broke dog. The key is to go straight from the crate to outside .. don't let the pup out of the crate then go get some coffee or read the paper first!

[YellowDog03]

My first pup I had raised, I kept her in a crate in my bedroom. Which ment we had to head down a flight of stairs to get the the door. When she would wake up in the middle of the night, I'd let her out of the crate, pick her up and carry her down the stairs and outside. She didn't have a problem with this.

In my opinion, the pup will be too little to go down the stairs by itself, so it'll need to be carried. The pup isn't going to just go potty as your carrying him/her. You'll be fine keeping the pup in your room and carrying it outside.

[bigDman]

if you are fast on the stares and dont mind the new pup sprikling your hand a little in the morning no big deal my advice is to put it closer to the door but that is me.

[BillDeLuc]

I agree, if you want the pup to sleep in the bedroom with you, put the crate in there. I don't think it will be much of a problem. It will help the pup to feel secure and bond to you, and when it gets older and sleeps out of the crate, it will have the habit of sleeping in your room with you.