Crate train, weight gain

How's the crate-training going? I don't know. You tell me.

He is content in the crate. He has soft blankets, chew toys, water. He can hang out there pretty happily for a while.  (He's there right now.) We are trying to teach him the cheery "Angus, go to bed!" command that Rosie knows so well--she wheels around from whatever she's doing (even barking at the doorbell) to run inside her crate. We toss her a couple of Charlee Bears and she's happy.

Angus hasn't quite learned that command yet, so we sometimes have to stuff him inside the crate, saying cheerily over and over, "Go to bed!" while scattering treats galore. Trouble is, then Rosie also runs into her crate, and we have to toss some treats her way too.

Saying the name first doesn't seem to matter. She doesn't distinguish.

He keeps a dry kennel for several hours--yesterday I last let him out at 10 a.m. and the dogwalker came at 2, and all was well. That was a long time for him. (There was a snafu this week with the person who has been coming at 12:30. She'll be back next week.)

Overnight, he seems to need to go out fairly regularly at 1:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m.  Yes, we are tired.

But--in the house? He shows no inclination whatsoever to go to the back door to be let out. When we say, "Do you want to go outside?" Rosie runs to the back door but Angus just keeps doing whatever he's doing. He's not that interested in outside.

He lets fly wherever he is playing--front hallway and living room being the prime spots. And he will let fly after peeing outside, so I don't think it's the old "puppies' bladders are tiny and they can't hold it."  Clearly, he can hold it. He just still doesn't understand that he's not supposed to do this.

Angus has adopted the Rosie philosophy that anything soft is automatically a dog bed.

Yesterday, he peed in the yard, and then I took him for a short walk and he peed again, and then we came home and, yes, he peed again. In the front hallway.

It's frustrating. Our house smells constantly of Odo-Ban. But he is only nine weeks old, and he's still adjusting to--well, to being alive, I think. I had to go back and look at what I had written when Rosie was a baby. I think it took about a month to six weeks to housebreak her, so Angus is not behind schedule. I think it's just that he's so big, he seems older than he is.

Which brings us to the other issue: Yes, he's growing. I weighed him yesterday and since Saturday he has gained another half-pound. Our boy is now fourteen pounds. How much longer will I be able to hold him like this?