[Chip's Mom]

Hello:

When we got Chip, he was 8 weeks old. We fixed him up a 4 ft square playpen and set it up in the kitchen. Inside, we put his fairly large crate, a few toys, water, food, a chewy bone and a puppy pad. He was put in at night when we were in bed or if we had to go away in the evening. During the day, if my husband was gone or too busy to watch him, he was left in his playpen. If he had to go to the bathroom, he used his puppy pad. We took him outside often when we were home and in the evening, he had the run of the house supervised of course. I always praised him when he went potty outside and he is now completely housebroken. We did take him out of his playpen when he was about 3 - 4 months old. Can't remember now, but he got his exercise, didn't potty in his crate and it worked well for us. I made sure I cleaned the area quite often with urine off.