Hello everyone! We just got a 8 week old Bichon puppy this week and I am housetraining her in the crate. Problem is, I feel so cruel leaving her in the crate so much. Is it cruel to leave her in the crate most of the day while in this housetraining mode? Which could take months, I've learned, on Bichons.

Also, she is sleeping at the foot of our bed, but, I don't feel it is safe, in case she falls off or hubby rolls on her, so tonight I will start leaving her in crate at night. I know it will be torture listening to her cry, but I think its best.

Here are my questions for now:

1) Is it cruel to leave her in crate most of day and then all night while potty-training? Of course, I will take her out and play, but, it seems that if she is in the crate that long, she will sleep a lot and then NOT sleep at night.

2) How do I know the difference in the middle of the night, if she needs to potty, or just wants to get out of crate? Is there maybe a set number of times she should go out at night to potty?

Thanks for the help!

If you are home your pup doesnt always have to be in his crate for potty training. What worked for me was to keep the dog by my side, with a leash slipped thru my belt loops and attached to my dog. That way the dog cant wonder away, and I can see if he starts trying to wonder and sniff. If you cant be by your pups side I would then put him in his crate until you can take him outside and attach him to your side.
With my little dog I would just take him outside every 30 minutes or so until I knew his habits, then slowly increase the time between outside trips.
Good luck!

daphne, thanks so much for answering! I kind of gave up after a while checking my posting. Yes, since I am home, but do go run errands often, she is out of the crate quite a bit. I have just heard in some posts that the only time you take them out is to play and eat and potty. She lays on our couch quite a bit and sleeps, so I didn't know if I was delaying the potty training thing or not.

I'm real worried that a lot of posts I've read say Bichons never get 100% potty-trained. I'm hoping by me being home a lot she'll "get it". Oh, please let her "get it"-lol!

I have a almost 6 month old Bichon. When I got him he was 10 weeks old. I did use the crate at night and when we were'nt home. He did cry the 1st couple days but then was fine wit it. I used training pads and would put his crate in my room at bedtime. If he started whinning I would get him out and put him on the pad so he could "potty". That's the word we use. Just stay on her is my advise. Training him with the pads was pretty easy. The harder part was switching to going outside. We're still working on that. Love my Bichon (Spanky) fell in love at 1st sight. Not happy about him being white. Believe me they will/do get dirty fast.

Just an update on my bichon puppy: She is pretty much sleeping through the night in her crate in our bedroom. She's had a couple of accidents in the house, but I'm pretty adament (sp?) about taking her outside for potty breaks every hour or so.

One thing I think is weird, is she doesn't poop 15-60 mins like books say they do, she poops about 2-3 hours later. Is that normal? Makes it kinda hard to know when to take her out, but that is what seems to be her time.

I've decided not to worry about how long it will take to potty-train-it was really stressing me out and I was wondering if I did the right thing by getting a bichon. I'm going to have a positive outlook about it and hopefully she will get it sooner than later-lol!