Hi. I'm new to this, I have an 8 week old American Staffordshire Terrier we just got. I'm trying to get this training right from the begining to avoid issues in the past I have had with poorly trained pets. We got a crate for her that we put her in every night, has a little bed, a shirt of mine, some toys and chews. I played with her the first couple days in the crate and gave her treats in it and for the most part thats worked well. She only whines at night usually when she has to go potty and after a week she has never gone potty in the crate. I work from home and setup a play pen for the day as I don't want to confine her in the crate all day and I can't keep a close enough eye on her. I keep the pen in my office and it has a small bed, piece of clothing and toys similar to the crate but its open and larger and she can see me from inside, about 4 feet from my desk. My schedule is pretty much feed at 7am, take out back to go potty and play for 10 minutes or so. Then into the crate from about 8-11am, I take her potty again, feed her again at noon and potty and play a bit, then back into play pen till about 3pm when I take her potty again, and out again at 5pm to eat dinner and potty, play out back a bit. From this point on I keep her out of the play pen and keep her near me in the same room so I can play with her, work on training, chewing, etc., till night time when I put her in the crate for the night.

All told she spends about 8 hours a day in the play pen not counting lunch, potty breaks, and a bit of playing after lunch.

My problem is after 4 days she still is screaming about 60% of the time she is in the play pen, and I mean screaming non stop until she falls asleep. If I get up it starts again. I always ignore her completely when she does this. Its heartbreaking and its head splitting. I had to get some Bose noise cancelling headphones so I can stay in the same room and work, as I heard being near is better for them. Am I doing this right, should I alter my schedule or setup on training for her? Or should I just wait this out as it takes a lot longer then I was hoping?

hopefully this isn't too much info. Her name is Gertrude by the way.

Any help is much appreciated.

Bill