Hey all,
One of my friends just got a puppy, and I'm trying to help her figure out the best way to toilet train her puppy.

The situation: Sometimes, both her and her boyfriend are scheduled to work at the same time and thus can't be home to let the puppy outside, so it stays in its crate for eight hours at a time, which means it has to hold it for eight hours or soil itself.

I, for one, don't think that's healthy. They live in an apartment, so they can't put a dog door to the outside.

This is what I'm suggesting she do: Set up one of those fenced enclosures (the metal ones or whatever) out of the way and put the puppy's crate in that. Then, teach the puppy to use a puppy pad outside its crate so it doesn't have to hold it for ever; only put down the pad when they'll be gone for extended periods of time so that it knows when they're there, it has to go OUTSIDE.

1) Is this a plausible idea?
and
2) How do you train a twelve week old puppy to use the pad? Same way as outside, with praise when they go on it and negative response when you catch them in the act on the carpet?

Thanks! She's a first time dog owner and I'm trying to help her best I can. ^_^;

That sounds like a good idea to me. I think the pee pads have some kind of attractant in them so dogs want to go on them. I don't know for sure since I never used them.
A puppies bladder isn't very large and they can't hold it that long.

That sounds like a very good idea.
I have never had a puppy but you can try this:
Whenever they take the puppy outside (or where ever they have it go) to go to the bathroom bring the pad and wait for the puppy to pee on it. When puppy does give him lot of scratches and rubs, or if puppy doesn't care about attention you could use food. If this works then puppy will eventually understand to go on the pad.
Again though, never tried this so I don't know if this will work, try Googleing it.