Hello. New here to the site. Been poking around for the past week and decided to post. I'm expecting my bulldog pup in about 2 weeks. He will be 10 weeks old and his name is Oogie. My concern is house training and potty training.
I bought a wire crate with a panel divider for the times when I'm not home. I don't have a backyard but have an area at the side of the house measuring around 12 feet long and 4 feet wide made up of concrete. There's also about a foot of dirt area on the side which runs the entire 12 feet length. It's confined with a gate. The entrance door to this area is through the garage. What I'm thinking about doing is putting a doggy door on that door so he has access to the outside area for potty purposes now and when he's grown. I'm currently planning to push the wire crate up against the doggy door so that when he steps out of the crate, he'd be outside. I plan on feeding him in his crate twice daily, at 7am and 3pm and plan on taking his water away at 8.
My question is, does everyone here think that this is a good setup? I want him to be able to rest and sleep in his crate and be able to hop outside to potty or stretch his legs. My concern is that when he goes out, he'll end up sleeping outside and won't come back in his crate. Should I limit the size of the outside area at first? Or should I just setup a playpen in the garage connected to his crate. Once he's older and housebroken, My intention is to leave the garage door open from inside the house and he can just go through the doggy door to potty. I leave for work at 10am and will come home for lunch at 3pm. He will be in his crate in my bedroom during the night.
Sorry for the novel length post but I do appreciate any feedback.
I bought a wire crate with a panel divider for the times when I'm not home. I don't have a backyard but have an area at the side of the house measuring around 12 feet long and 4 feet wide made up of concrete. There's also about a foot of dirt area on the side which runs the entire 12 feet length. It's confined with a gate. The entrance door to this area is through the garage. What I'm thinking about doing is putting a doggy door on that door so he has access to the outside area for potty purposes now and when he's grown. I'm currently planning to push the wire crate up against the doggy door so that when he steps out of the crate, he'd be outside. I plan on feeding him in his crate twice daily, at 7am and 3pm and plan on taking his water away at 8.
My question is, does everyone here think that this is a good setup? I want him to be able to rest and sleep in his crate and be able to hop outside to potty or stretch his legs. My concern is that when he goes out, he'll end up sleeping outside and won't come back in his crate. Should I limit the size of the outside area at first? Or should I just setup a playpen in the garage connected to his crate. Once he's older and housebroken, My intention is to leave the garage door open from inside the house and he can just go through the doggy door to potty. I leave for work at 10am and will come home for lunch at 3pm. He will be in his crate in my bedroom during the night.
Sorry for the novel length post but I do appreciate any feedback.
. I didn't go to twice a day feeding until Tank was 5 months.
). I would put his crate inside and try to train him with the "every-hour-out-method" so that he learns quickly what is outside and what is inside. But please don't overwhelm him, we had a perfect plan like yours before Ulysses joined us last year, read lots of books and researched all what we could. So when we finally got him we wanted to get him trained asap, and kinda forgot he was just a baby. So my advice is use the first few weeks to get him comfortable and bond with him, cuddle a lot and give him lots of love so that he feels home. He will eventually learn, just FYI it took Ulysses 10 months to stop peeing inside the house, and I've read lots of people here have had the same issue, I think it just takes longer for a bully. Oh and feeding him only twice a day is not a good idea, his little belly will probably get upset. If you can you should divide his food into 3 or 4 portions a day for the first weeks and then slowly feed him less times. I'm sorry for the long post but I know how hard it can be at the beginning. Congratulations and good luck!
