[shannon227]

so my 8 month old puppy, "lab/husky mix", will not stop urinating in his kennel. i have an 8-5 job but i make sure i take him out before i leave in the morning, when i get home for lunch around noon and once i get home . he gets plenty of exercise daily and he doesnt even care if he rolls in it while he's in there. today i even came home and he's sleeping upside down and halfway soaked in it, you could tell he rolled around a bit so i know making his kennel even smaller wont help. he's a pretty big puppy now so making it smaller will only make him really uncomfortable. i'm not sure what to do anymore...

 

[GuardianAngel]

You may want to make your dog's area bigger believe it or not. Meaning use a doggy play pen instead of the crate or have the crate door open to the pen area. Although some people do not recommend it, I think paper training is a saving grace at this point. I am certainly glad both my dogs came from the breeder paper trained. Makes clean up easy and despite what other people say getting them off the paper isn't all that hard.

 

[Amaryllis]

Has he been to the vet? A number of conditions cause a dog not to be able to hold it, including urinary tract infections, diabetes and water diabetes.

Is he capable of holding it for 5 hours when you're home? (I'm assuming you come home at noon, walk him and then come back again around 5:30.) If yes, then either he's upset that you're gone and pees out of distress, or the crate smells like pee to him, so he thinks he can pee there. Have you tried keeping him in the bathroom while you're gone? That space won't smell like pee, so he may not be inclined to pee there.

If he can't hold it 5 hours when you're there, well, he can't hold it while you're gone, either. Sometimes dogs, especially big dogs, go through growth spurts, and the frame of the dog grows before the internal organs, so the body is producing more pee and the bladder is too small to hold it all. This may just go away on its own.

 

[LilasMom]

How many hours is he in the crate? Being in a crate from 8-5 even with a break seems like too long.