[NewDogMommy]

My 4 and a half month old puppy is completely crate trained at night. Never once has she had an accident. Even when she had a UTI after surgery she would bark to me let out in the middle of the night. I would like her to sleep outside of her crate and possibly on a doggy bed in our bedroom floor. Is she house broken? or simply crate trained? I don't want to think she will do well and mess her up all over again.....help!

 

[Amaryllis]

She may be reliably house trained. The only way to know is to try. Why not buy some blankets at goodwill and lay those down to protect the floor?

 

[NewDogMommy]

She goes near the door when she is out during the day then we just get up and automatically take her out. I just don't know if she would bark or warn us before she can't hold it anymore. She never whines, just walks over there and then goes. Also, our bedroom is far from the outside door. I thought I would maybe try closing the bedroom door and that way I would definitely know if she was whining. I may try it on a weekend because I would hate my husband to make up and step into a surprise on the floor because for at 5:50 am. That is a great idea though and I may get old towels and put them by the door just in case she doesn't bark. If she doesn't bark what should I do then? How can I make her alert us before she relieves herself?

 

[Cotonlove]

Our pup is 14 weeks old and we trained her to ring a bell that we hung from our doorknob. We keep her in her crate at night but maybe you could train your dog to ring a bell. Just take her paw and hit the bell each time you take her out to potty. Good luck!

 

[a7dk]

Our pup is 14 weeks old and we trained her to ring a bell that we hung from our doorknob. We keep her in her crate at night but maybe you could train your dog to ring a bell. Just take her paw and hit the bell each time you take her out to potty. Good luck!

This is a great idea - the only thing that has kept me from trying it with Hobbes is the fear that he would figure out to ring the bell whenever he wanted to go outside (which would be constantly) rather than just to go out to pee.

 

[doxiemommy]

Yeah, I would be worried about our dogs ringing the darn bell ALL the time, just for fun! I taught Harper to play a toddler's piano, one of those tiny kids' things. Well, he doesn't play tunes or anything. LOL! But, once he realized he got a treat for tapping the piano keys, it was on! He plays ALL the time!

I would be careful in assuming that your puppy is "house trained" just because he can hold it through the night. Body systems slow down at night, heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, digestion, all that good stuff is on "sleep mode" so to speak, so less urine is produced. That enables dogs (and humans, for that matter) to hold it better at night than during the day.

Our puppies could hold it at night way sooner than during the day!

As for at night, you could try it on the weekend, as you say, and see how it goes, just leaving the crate door open. If that works well, you could transition to using a doggy bed. But, I wouldn't go straight to the doggy bed. A change like that might make it super obvious to him that things have changed, and he might get curious and decide to do some night time exploring. He's still very young and young puppies are very curious, and can get into a lot of trouble at night if left to their own devices!