We recently adopted a male 6 month old Pomeranian-ShihTzu mix. Before we had him he was in a place where he was allowed to eliminate in his crate so that has made potty training a challenge!
We take him out frequently and he is following a good schedule of eating twice a day and playing and then going out after all of these. He is able to ‘hold it’ because we leave him in the crate for about 8 hours at night and he never goes potty in the crate. However, he has started going in his crate during the day. I have read so many websites that say a dog will not eliminate in his crate because it is his den but obviously mine does not follow this. He will pee in his crate and then just lay down in it. He also pooped in his crate and sat in it this morning but that does not happen as frequently. The crate is large but we have a divider in it where he just has enough room to stand up, turn around and lay down. Also, we were told not to put bedding in the crate because he would just pee on it and then push it aside. So the bottom of the crate is just plastic.
He definitely understands what it means to ‘go outside’ because he always does his business out there and I praise him. I just can’t understand why he would eliminate in his crate and then lay in it when I know he can hold it and also when I thought dogs were not supposed to do that in their ‘den’. He is in his crate for 8 hours at night, out for 1 hour (taken out twice), in the crate for 4 hours, out for one hour (taken out twice), in the crate for 4 hours and then out for about 6 hours before we go to bed (taken out about once an hour).
Any advice on what I can do to correct this behavior?

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