# Pup poops in crate.



## Neely (Oct 9, 2014)

My Vizsla is 5 months old and every time I leave her in the crate she will poo in it, even if she was just left alone for 30 min. 

Any advice?


----------



## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

a potty trip everytime before putting in crate - a smaller crate so less space to avoid the mess -


----------



## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

Neely, I don't crate my dog, so I can't help you there. I did want to welcome you to the forums, though!!


----------



## Chaos911 (Oct 30, 2013)

Sounds like poss a stress reaction. Make sure to work on making crating a positive experience. Treats, short times grad increase with reward. Def a sm crate till earns a larger one. Good luck. 👍


----------



## Claude.J (Oct 29, 2014)

Its probably stress! I know quite a bit about stress myself, I'm the coach of a pretty big sports franchise down in the New England area. I won't say who, but lets just say we don't like to be poked. Anyway, alls I'm saying is if we don't make the playoffs this year i might end up sitting in some poop myself. Hope not. R. E. McCraiths earlier comment sounds good to me, good luck buddy


----------



## MCD (May 4, 2013)

I had this problem with Dharma. She would nest in any blankets or a crate pad. She would soil her crate. We had issues with food sensitivities thus causing diarrhea and she would have a mess all over her crate. At the time I believe we had a larger plastic crate. Seeing as she is smaller than we anticipated- we ended up putting her in a crate that was 4 inches shorter, cutting out all of her bad food, making sure she was taken out before we left and made sure she went to the bathroom. I think she stressed out in her crate because she would bash her nose too. She seems to be better now but this came with time and consistency of putting her in her crate- even sometimes when we were at home and in another room. Just give it a chance and some time. Try to make crating a positive and consistent action.


----------



## fullmanfamily (Oct 17, 2014)

I think part of it may just be your pup adjusting to the crate, as many have said below. Taking the puppy out before crating and getting a smaller crate are both great ideas. We bought a Life Stages crate for our 8 week old puppy. I agree that making the crate size smaller helps. The theory on this is that by limiting the space, there is less of a chance they will soil their crate b/c they don't want to hang out in any pee/poop. 

We also put blankets around the outside with weights on the top ( so she couldn't pull the blankets off). That made it more den like. Until she was a little more crate trained, we didn't put nice fluffy blankets in. We used old bath towels and put plastic/rubber toys in that could be easily washed. 

It definitely takes time-- she is 14 weeks and is pretty good about not soiling her crate at all. We just made her crate a little bigger for her and so far so good with no accidents. I would try and stick to a routine as much as possible, they'll get use to when they're in the crate, when they get to go out to pee/poop, and how long they have to hold it during the day/night.


----------

