We bought an XXXL dog cage last week to double up as a pen while she is left at home alone. We have had it up so she can get used to being in it. Trouble is she has started using it like a litter tray. We have her bed at one end and newspaper at the other. We've tried taking out the newspaper and placing a dog rug in it but she just pees on that instead. It seems to be hampering her house training. While it is ok for her to pee in there if she is desperate when we are out, it's not ok when she has the run of the house when we are home. Any suggestions? Or just take it down and only have it up when we are not at home? (which is never more than a couple of hours)

Hi There

Fill half the cage with boxes or some other method to restrict the area she has to roam in the cage or she will use it as a toilet - as she grows and her bladder gets stronger you can give her more room.
Puppies tend not to wet their bed but any extra room is fair game !!
Kathy

Pixies mums hit the nail on the head. Make the crate smaller until she is toilet trained. They will very rarely wee or poo where they sleep. She should be fine in the smaller space while you are out, but if it's more than a couple of hours you could have the pen at full size so she has somewhere to go to the toilet.

Good luck

You can make it smaller - or you could try some some vet bed

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vetbed-non-sl ... 1423wt_905

Barney never once wet the bed and he had a crate bed

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fleece-Bed-Ma ... 4167e20fa0

Thanks for the replies folks. I'll try reducing her space in the cage with some wire mesh, as I suspect she would shred any card boxes to bits (in Immi's world all things paper based are legitimate prey!)

Immi is a beautiful pup! She is very young to be left for afew hour without option to toilet. When you are home, if it was me ,I would be taking her outside often - few times in the hour rather than free run of the house. I wonder if she knows she is supposed to go outside? Extra praise when she goes when you take her outside too. It sounds like she assumes the crate is where she should be doing her business...
Probably telling you what you know already. Good luck

90% of the time she goes outside and will ask to do so. It's just that since we put the cage up for her to get used to before we do start leaving her she has decided to use it on occassion to pee in. I half suspect it is a behaviour she remembers from the pen at the breeders. But for now I have taken the cage back down. I do take her out every 30mins or so and she's very good. At night she sleeps in a soft bed in our bedroom and hasn't used the paper covered polythene for five nights now which is great. She's doing so well in her training so far I perhaps forget she's so young, she already knows 'sit' 'lie-down' 'drop' 'no' 'go-wee' and 'Immi-come' and the associated hand signals! She has amazed me with her capacity for learning and willingness to please, and she seems to absolutely love training.