13 week old Pom goes potty VERY frequently...

by Tiffany
(Orlando)

I got my Pomeranian puppy about a month ago, and we've been diligently working on potty training her. She knows and likes to go potty outside, she'll go almost immediately when I put her in the grass.

We are crate training her. She is in her crate from about 8:30am-1:00pm, with a potty break around 11am. It's hit or miss as to whether or not she has peed in her crate by 11am. At 1pm, she is let out to pee during my boyfriend's lunch break. She goes back into her crate at 1:30 and is let out again at 3:30 and 5:30pm when he gets home. Again, it's hit or miss as to whether or not she has peed in her crate in these time increments. Usually she holds it, but lately it's gotten worse and she's been peeing in her crate more frequently.

I've been using Nature's Miracle to clean it each and every time she pees in it, to get rid of the smell.

When she is out of her crate, she tends to randomly pee in the house at odd intervals (and this is even with me watching her like a hawk!!) I can take her outside to pee, and she'll squat a few times and come back inside and pee 15 minutes later (usually in the kitchen, we have a doggy gate up) It's very frustrating. I keep her on a schedule, I eliminate the smells, I take her out frequently (especially when she's out of her kennel, at LEAST once every 45mins-1hr) and she still pees on the floor. I tell the pee that it's bad (lol, I've resorted to talking to her excrement!!) and we take the "bad pee" outside.

I live in an apartment, on the second story, so we are constantly up and down the stairs. I am almost thinking about trying to train her to go on pee pads, especially if she just can't hold it. Does anyone have any suggestions for or against these? She does like going outside, I just can't seem to get her to stop going inside too! I just hate the idea of training her to go pee in the house, even if it is on the pad. It just seems to me like it's setting up for bad behaviors later on (like randomly peeing on any old paper on the floor).

Thanks very much for any help!!