Crate training

So far, the crate training has been going well. Kushi hasn't had an accident in over a month. We got Kushi at 17 weeks, and her foster parents had been paper training her, but she would often have accidents. When we got her, we stopped the paper training, and instead put her into a plastic crate. The crate was just barely be big enough to allow her to stand and turn around, so that she would be less tempted to go potty in the far corner of a roomier crate. We also did not have any bedding inside the crate to also lessen the temptation to go pee. We found that a play pen also is an extremely helpful tool for potty training. A play pen gives your puppy room to play, but still allows you to keep an eagle eye on her. In the beginning, we took her out to her grass sod every hour, and now, she only needs to go every 2-4 hours. We would tell her "Go Potty" and as soon as she finished going, we would praise the heck out of her and give her a tasty treat. She usually poops after every meal (two meals a day), and once first thing in the morning. On average, she goes poop 3-4 times a day. She has a preference to go potty on grass, cedar chips, leaves and dirt, in that order. In the beginning, she's had a couple accidents (mostly due to my husband not paying enough attention, ahem), but after a couple weeks, she seemed to get the idea. We still don't allow her full free reign in the house, mainly because we want to take it slow, but she's well on her way there.