House Training a Crate Trained Dog?

We adopted our dog at 1 yr. as a rescue. She was only partially house-trained. She is fully potty trained now, asks to go outside, and never has accidents while we are home. She is also fully crate-trained and has never had an accident in her crate.

However, we're trying to transition her to being left out while we're gone, and she consistently has accidents out in the home, even if we're only gone for an hour or two in some cases. Since her potty training is otherwise successful, we're so frustrated with how to teach her not to potty inside at any time. She is only ever left alone for max of 6 to 8 hours, which she can comfortably hold in her crate, but will not hold if left free in the house. The carpets have been deep-cleaned with enzyme cleaner, and we use an enzyme cleaner to immediately clean any accidents since then. Has anyone else successfully house-trained their crate-trained adult? Any suggestions would be extremely helpful!

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poehere
Bronze Post Medal for All Time! 105 Posts

October 2, 20170 found this helpful

Your problem is the dog is a rescue dog and more than likely was abused.

If you want to try and leave her out of her crate and loose in the house this will take time. She is feel insecure when she is out of her crate.

I would do this slowly and not get rid of her crate.
Put her in the crate when you are leaving the home, but leave the door open. Do not close her in the crate. She feels safe and secure in her crate.
This will take time for her to feel comfortable in your home and secure where she is. You will still need to leave her crate for her because she feels at home in her crate.
You might want to buy another dog bed for your home and get her use to sleeping on this bed.
You can leave the bed outside her crate with the door open when you are gone.
Teach her to sleep in the bed next to her crate. She still might go inside her crate for sometime, but she will start to feel more secure the longer you help her and allow her to adjust.

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