Potty training help!

I have had 6 puppies throughout my life, all of which I trained. I don’t know if I’ve just been lucky in the past, but I have NEVER had one this difficult to potty train before.

To start, yes I know he is still very young and I do not expect him to fully potty trained anytime soon.

I have a 12 week old mixed breed puppy I’ve adopted from the shelter at 10 weeks old. He seems very smart and has been quick to learn things like sit, down, wait, and drop.

However, we are struggling majorly with potty training. In the past, I’ve always kennel trained and daytime potty trained (knowing if I were to be gone an extended period of time and overnight, there would be accidents until they were older and able to go longer between potty breaks).

However, this puppy will pee small amounts (slightly larger than a quarter) every 15 minutes to hour. Sometimes more frequently than that. He’s in an appropriate sized kennel and will pee in there within 10 minutes of going outside sometimes.

We’ve tried to limit his water intake to mealtimes and no less than 30 minutes before he may need to be in his kennel. We take him pee every time he gets up from laying down, anytime he starts sniffing around, or anytime he gets suddenly distracted when playing. We also take him potty right before and 30 minutes after every meal and 15-30 minutes anytime he drinks water. He’s still having several accidents in the house and urinating in his kennel often.

He’s a medium sized breed and from what I’ve been told by my vet should be able to go up to 3 hours between potty breaks. He has a visit next week for his vaccines and I will be having him checked for a UTI to rule that out as a possibility, although he has no other signs of having one. I do think he CAN hold it, as he will hold it up to 2 hours if he goes with us in the car.

Because of him urinating so much even when in the kennel, he is getting frequent bathes and his skin is getting dried out from it. I know it’s not good for him to get 5+ baths a week. What am I missing that I can try?

So far I’ve tried the above plus taking him outside 15 minutes after he’s peed the first time, taking the paper towel we clean it up with and putting it where he potties outside, stopping him as soon as we catch him and immediately taking him out, and putting him in his kennel anytime we can’t continuously watch him (this is where he’s peeing on himself a lot and going within 10 minutes of being kenneled, even if he just went).