# X-Pen sizes or Gated Kitchen?



## Tycho (Jun 25, 2013)

Congratulations on the new puppy  

We just brought our boy home a few weeks ago. I had the same questions as you. I am home with him all day most days but still try to make sure that he spends time alone during the day because I will not always be home all the time. 

If you are going to be leaving her home while at work it is important that she get used to that while you are there to monitor her reaction and make sure that she knows that you will always return. 

The biggest issue Ty had in the first few days was being apart from his people. He latched on to us very quickly and when in his Ex-pen (where he goes for his rest periods during the day) he would whimper and bark incessantly when we left the room. It is SO IMPORTANT not to give in and comfort them during this process. As soon as they are quiet (which may take a long while) go reward her for calming herself down without your presence. If you try this a few times a day while you are home, she will be able to better deal with your absence. 

Our set-up is ex-pen during the day and crate at night... but really, you have to see what works for you. 

Hope this helps! 

Again, CONGRATS


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## PaisleyH (Jul 24, 2013)

Tycho, Thank you for the insights. Your xpen set up, is the crate in there as well? or are the two totaly seperate? 

Any discription of the set-ups would be helpful.

Thank you thank you thank you for your time!

Matt


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## KeaColorado (Jan 2, 2013)

IMHO, crating during the times you are not at home or can't have 100% eyes on the puppy really speeds housebreaking. Once she's reliably 'asking' to go out (and keep in mind, with a puppy, it will be subtle...I remember for us, it went something like we took her out when she whined, sniffed the carpet, finished playing, finished eating, woke up from a nap, walked toward the door, looked toward the door, etc.), you can try giving her a little more freedom on the x-pen when you're away at work. If you go straight to the x-pen, I'd bet she'll use one side for sleeping and playing and one side for going potty, so you want to avoid that if you can. Actually, for the first few weeks, we used a divider in the crate so the space Kea had was just enough to stand up, turn around and lie down. She wasn't left alone for more than 3-4 hours at a time. When we were home, she was out of the crate and supervised. When I was home and couldn't supervise her (e.g., in the shower), she was in her crate. She graduated from the crate to the x-pen when she was about 4 months old, and soon after, we used the x-pen folded in half to block off the kitchen and she stayed in there when we were at work for the next year. Now she's 2 and gets to be loose in the house and sleep on the couch all day. What a life! 

Good luck, so excited for you!!! Is the person who will be letting her out during the day going to have time to stay for a bit and play with her? She is going to be soooo cute


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## goldlover68 (Jun 17, 2013)

We brought our new girl home in January....she is a field bred Golden, so she is high energy....boy is she ever! 

We started her in an X Pen and put her crate in the set up. This worked well for about 1 week when she first jumped up on her crate, then the next day she jumped out of the pen (never touched the pen with her feet)....like I said high energy.....we put her back in and told her no...in time she stopped jumping out. 

We are home with her most of the time at night of if we had to leave, in the crate she went. She is doing well, potty trained and now off with a trainer for more advanced field training.


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## Tycho (Jun 25, 2013)

We started letting Ty in his Ex-pen after about a week of solid house breaking. Before that he was crated when not being watched 100% of the time... 

Our Ex pen and crate are separate... but that is only because we do not have the space to permit them in the same area. 

Once Paisley is getting better and more reliable with her "tells" as to when she needs to go potty, you can leave her in her ex-pen when you leave the house for extended periods. I would tend to agree with Kea regarding the use of a crate exclusively when you first bring her home and are doing confinement exercises. 

There will be times when you need some puppy-free time and the Ex-pen is good for that. you can set it up in the room you are in and know that she can't get into too much trouble but she is still with you. For example, you could set up the ex-pen in the kitchen while you are preparing dinner


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## Millie'sMom (Sep 7, 2012)

We have fostered a number of young puppies, and I usually have the wire crate attached to the xpen with the door open. There are toys and a pee pad (in a holder) in the pen and a blanket in the crate. The best suggestion I ever got, was to buy a large water bottle that could be attached to the xpen, otherwise my puppies always felt the need to go "swimming" in their water bowl.


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## Abby girl (May 26, 2013)

We have both a gated area in the kitchen area as well as an x-pen attached to a crate (the crate has two doors which makes it ideal.) We also have a crate in the bedroom for night time. Abby is 19 weeks now and it's just been the past 2 weeks that we've started to leave her in her x-pen (VS only the crate) when we go out - she has managed very well in there for up the 4-4.5 hours. Fortunately she has not attempted to move it or jump over it. The crate is an extra large one and the x-pen is 8 panels at 36" high. So far, so good. We've been fortunate to have one or the other of us home most of the time since we got her at 8 weeks but that will change come September so we're getting her used to being in there for 4 hour stretches as she'll have to manage until one of us nips home at lunch. Here's a pic of our set up - Abby was about 10 weeks here.. All the best on your new pup!


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## CRS250 (Dec 31, 2012)

Congrats on the puppy! Great to read that you are planning so well in advance. You asked for some different options so I'll throw out what we did which is slightly different than others here. We have a similar 8 - 5 schedule to yours, with a dog walker stopping by at lunch.

During the day our puppy has:
A through wall automated electric dog door in our family room with a large crate attached to it. The door is activated by an ultrasonic transponder on the puppies collar. The dog door leads out into a double fenced yard, a 48" xpen enclosed space about 10x15 which is surrounded by a 8' tall redwood fence.



Our family room is a separated from our kitchen/living room by the bedrooms and a hallway in our house. So if we kept the puppy back in that area while we were home he wouldn't have been able to see us. So we also put up a pressure mounted child gate in the kitchen doorway. This area was where he'd play if we werent watching him, rather than an xpen on our carpet. 

In total during his potty training our puppy had less than 3 accidents. We put a lot of this credit with our breeder though as she raised the dogs in her home and had a similar dog door arrangement for her adult dogs which the puppies picked up. 

While my wife didnt shoot this to highlight the arrangement you can see both setups in this video.


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