She's a pug/beagle mix.
As far as potty training, I'm crating her right now. She's in a large wire crate with her bed/toys/water on one side, and potty pad on the other. She's in there from 8-4 mon-thurs, and 8-2:30 on friday. Whenever we're home, she's only in there for feeding & nap time, and we take her outside quite often to eliminate. I know it's not ideal to have her in there for so long, but we really don't have anyone in the area that can come over everyday.. and we both work too far away to go home for lunch (without gas prices killing us). I've talked with many people, including trainers, about our situation, and the most common response was to make sure that she had a separate area for eliminating. So far she's only had a few accidents off of the pad.. she has basically learned that that's where she needs to go to do her business while she's in there. As far as out of the crate, she's still having accidents of course, but she's going outside for the most part. What gives me hope is how well she's trained at night.. I wake her up (unless she wakes me up first) at 2am, we go outside, she pees right away, and then it's back in her kennel and back to sleep within a minute or two. I keep her in a small carry kennel right next to my bed so she can see me and I can hear her when she wakes up.
If it makes a difference, she's not alone all day.. we have a 4 yr old rottie, Bruschi, who's blanket and chew toys are set up near her crate. The majority of the time he's there hanging out when one of us gets home.. which makes us feel a little better since he's keeping her company. We give her tons of attention and playtime while we're home, so I feel like we're doing the best we can.
So with all of that said, should I stay with the feeding times we have now.. morning, late afternoon, evening?
I really appreciate everyones feedback
Here's a pic of the two on Charlee's first day home.