Baby Chihuahua sleep and bathroom use. Please help?

Question

I have had a six week old Chihuahua since yesterday. She has started eating soaked kibble (puppy Pedigree). She has also started to be VERY active; today she started running like crazy!

My concern is: She is sleeping in my room in a medium-large cardboard box. She sleeps for about 3 hours then she starts crying. This is her telling me that she has to go to the bathroom. At night she does this too; she did it at midnight and around three in the morning. Should I let her out of the box in the wee hours of the night so she can go pee and poo, or should I just go to sleep and clean her messy blankets (assuming she goes) in the morning??

Answer 1

Never force her to sleep in her pee pee or poop.
She needs a larger box, just put her bed in one end of the larger box and newspaper in the other end, she will know what to do. Also have a small amount of water and food off to one side of the box for her to have snacks through out the night.
By having her bed inside a larger box she can still sleep in comfort but be able to get out and do her business whenever she needs to. It will also give you a chance to sleep through the night.
She should not have been taken away from her mother yet, (I know, you already have her now)
You will just have to keep a very close watch out for her to insure she eats and drinks alot, she will need food and water left down for her at all times, you will also have to check to make sure she is actually eating.
Small breeds, especially Chihuahuas suffer from low blood sugar.....but it is SO easy to prevent, you will just have to make sure she eats and drinks at least every 4 to 5 hours. If you need to, feed her out of your hand.
If she plays hard and just conks out and goes to sleep without eating she will loose all her energy, and her body is so small she cant store any.
That is when you will have a serious problem, if she forgets to eat 3 or 4 times in a row.... she has NO reserves , and she may not be able to recover.
There is a suppliment you can get from the vet called Nutra-Cal it looks like a tube of dark brown toothpaste, give the baby a small amount every day (measure about 1 inch length on your fingar) Babies usually love the taste. It will protect her from low blood sugar.
You will want to have her checked for worms and set up a schedule to start her shots. Be careful that she does not come into contact with a bunch of strange dogs until she has had her shots. The other dogs may have diseases that will be fatal to her because her body hasn't had time to build up an immunity yet.
Good luck with the baby.

Answer 2

Give her time. If you just got her yesterday that means she was just taken away from her family and she's missing them. After a few days she will quiet down. Question: can she see you from her box? If she cannot maybe move the box so she can see you. it might help her to realize that she's not all alone in a scary dark place. Be ready for a couple of sleepless nights! You have a new baby and babies don't sleep when you want them to. make sure she doesn't take LONG naps right before you want to go to sleep, play with her and tire her out so you can sleep when she sleeps. But also remember that she needs her naps- she's a baby!- just try playing with her in the morning and afternoon and late evening so she will sleep midmorning, midafternoon, and at night.

I would suggest working on paper and crate training her...but know that she is just a baby and won't be able to fully learn these things for quite some time! Dogs don't like sleeping in their own poop so of course she is going to want to go some where other than her bed. Try making part of the box a place with news paper- or potty training pads- so she can learn to go by herself without waking you up.
mainly just give her time. She WILL sleep through the night, no worries. Right now she's just missing her Mom.

Answer 3

First of all, that puppy is WAY to young to have left the breeders!!! Especially a toy breed. You cannot even give its first shots until 6 weeks.. So she had to have given the pup right before you took her home. This kind of thing really angers me.

2nd. You need a small crate for her not a box and you should take her out, even in the middle of the night, unless you don't mind her going potty in your house for the rest of her life.. if you don't then get a litter box (use pellets that you buy for a pellet stove, they are cheap and natural).. And train her to use it

go here for more info:
http://www.poodlejunction.com/how_raised.htm
http://www.kturby.com/litter/litter.htm
http://www.showpaps.com/litterbox.htm

Do not just let her soil her space or your going to have a hell of a time later on.

If you are going to litter train her, get an ex-pen from petsmart, put her crate in that, and the litter box so she can go potty in the middle of the night. But I am telling you, you are going to have to train her to hold her potty. She is to young to be able to do that now..

Don't feed her after 5pm and do not give her water after 7pm...
good luck

Answer 4

If she's already crying to be let out at 6 weeks that's really great. I would encourage you to respond and take her out even though it means less sleep for you for the time being. She is so young and small that 3 hours is probably her max time for bladder control. If you ignore her, I think she will learn that it isn't important to let you know when she needs to go out. Also, try picking up any water bowls several hours before bedtime. As she gets older, the times between will lengthen.

Answer 5

She's a very tiny, young baby. You need to get up and take her out to go potty, or if she is in a large enough crate, put newspapers on one end of it for her to use. You don't want her to learn to potty in the main part of the crate - she will get used to this and you will really regret it later on. So either get up and take her to the potty area (you can train her to use an indoor litter box made for dogs, just line with newspapers and change when dirty), or keep part of the crate lined with newspapers.

Answer 6

You should take your puppy outside to go to the bathroom everytime it wakes up. That's getting the dog used to going to the bathroom outside, and not in the house. If you let a puppy go to the bathroom in the house long enough, it becomes harder to break your dog of this habit as she gets older. She should relate "outside" with "bathroom". Eventually she'll get the hang of it and hold her pee/poo until you take her outside. Hope this helps. I've raised 5 dogs since pups and found this to be highly successful in housebreaking dogs.

Answer 7

when mine was little I took her about every 4-5 hours out. Do take her outside. Unless you want her trained to go in the house? It wont last forever she is just a baby now. It is like a real baby. Mine is 6 years old and she sleeps with me. She goes out at 7,1 and 4 and before bed at night. She loves to sit on my lap and her belly rubbed. She will be your best friend. We had ours fixed at 6weeks we did not want babies.

Answer 8

shes no different than a child..her bladder is about the size of half her foot..teaching her to go out to potty is better than letting her potty indoors which later on becomes a habit as those odors are hard to get rid of...dogs smellers are 100 times more powerful than ours ..eventally she will become accustomed to not having to go at night ...good luck i just adore Chihuahuas

Answer 9

puppies that young are not able to hold it all night. they are like children. would you make your 6 week old baby lay in a poopy diaper all night and just let her cry? you need to let them out whenever she wakes up to tell u she gotta go

Answer 10

let her out or you will teach her its ok to go in the house and she'll do it once you don't keep her in a box anymore.