7 Tips For Crate Training Your Pup
By: Jenna Mcmahon
Tags: Pets, Crate Training, Dogs, Education, Puppies

Education

7 Tips For Crate Training Your Pup

One of the most misunderstood training strategies

Photo by author

If you read my first article then you may be wondering, isn’t Tucker a bit young for you to be spouting puppy training tips?

Yes, (we are still grappling with puppy biting) however, there is one aspect of training Tucker which already stands out as remarkably improved from our adventure training Maggie fifteen years ago.

The following is a series of lessons that I have learned about crate training after having tried twice with two different dogs.

1. Do the Research

When we “crate trained" our first dog, Maggie, we didn’t do any research. My parents viewed the crate as a tool for protecting unattended furniture and did not think that its use should be complicated. They put a nice soft bed inside, a water dish, and some rawhide bones. What more could a new puppy need from the space where they will spend 99% of their alone time?

Before bringing Tucker home we did extensive reading and YouTube video watching on tips to better crate train so that we could avoid some of the more severe anxiety problems Maggie exhibited before we gave up on using the crate entirely.

Here are a few of my favourite resources from that research expedition online:

Crate Training for Puppies and Dogs by Vladimir Negron on PetMD.com

Crate Training 101 by The Humane Society of the United States

Surviving the First 24 Hours With Your New Puppy by GoodBoy.co.uk

Photo by Ayla Verschueren on Unsplash

2. Your dog’s crate should be its bedroom

After Maggie was otherwise house-broken we only planned to use the crate when we weren’t home with her and so that was the only time she was ever put in the crate. This was a big mistake.

She began associating her crate with abandonment and so any time and every time we had to put her in there it was a battle in which everyone lost. She would snap, cry, run, and hide. At eleven years old this was my primary responsibility as I was the last person to leave the house each day. I don’t recall her ever drawing blood but I do remember feeling a bit like Steve Irwin whenever it was time to get Maggie into her crate before I went to school.

She was crated at night only until we trusted her not to pee on the carpets and then she slept on my bed beside me every night.

Tucker is crated every night. The first few weeks were difficult because we needed to be intuned with his potty needs while avoiding the desire to react every time he cried.

Now at four months old he not only settles right away but has also been caught curling up for a mid-afternoon snooze in his open crate.

3. Get the first night right

Maggie’s first night, my parents hadn’t known they would be bringing home a puppy that day so they had no crate and made a bed of some newspaper and an upturned laundry basket. I was away at summer camp but I can imagine this was a pitiful sight. This did not seem to have any adverse long term effects but routines should be started early.

Tucker’s crate was bought second-hand weeks before we brought him home. It was sized for a golden retriever but my dad installed a plywood panel to make it more appropriately sized. Sources say a dog’s crate should be no larger than the room they need to lie down comfortably and sleep, otherwise, they will be more likely to have accidents.

On that first night at home, we outfitted Tucker’s crate with a hot water bottle to simulate the feeling of curling up with a buddy and a blanket that I had slept with in my bed for three nights prior so he could become used to my smell and feel less lonely. He snuggled up with the hot water bottle every night until the summer heat had him avoiding it.

Photo by author

4. Positive reinforcement is key

When crate training Tucker we encouraged him to spend time in and around his crate during the day time so he would become comfortable with it as space he can interact with positively on his own terms. I hid treats inside for him to sniff out. We placed his food bowl and water dish beside it during the daytime.

If I found him passed out on the floor (as young puppies are known to do) I would pick him up and place him inside the crate then sit nearby and wait to see how he reacted. If he stirred and saw me near he would settle back down and sleep in the open crate or crawl out to lie on the cool floor (some dogs just prefer a cool firm surface to excesses of bedding and blankets).

5. Time outs are not the purpose

We have now come to acknowledge our first dog was really a cat in dog’s clothes. I don't recall her being in need of discipline very often, and especially not after she was house-broken.

Tucker, at 4 months old, has several times throughout the week wherein a time out just feels like it might be the solution we need for his puppy biting. However, we have resisted using the crate as a punishment and have been able to continue his positive associations with the space as a result.

Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

6. COVID-19 special — practicing alone time

My mom is working from home and my youngest brother has been out of school since March. Every day of our first two months with Tucker, someone has been home with him. While great for puppy bonding, this has the potential to be a serious problem for us as the pace of life returns to normal. We have been practicing teaching Tucker alone time by crating him when we clean the house, when we go to the store, and occasionally just for an hour or two so we can take a drive. These small episodes of alone time are done in the hopes that Tucker will grow into a well-adjusted adult who doesn’t associate our absence with catastrophe.

The longest period Tucker has been crated outside of his bedtimes is four hours while we went for a boat ride which resulted in no accidents and a happy tail wag when he was released.

In the mornings now that Tucker has proven that he can hold his bladder through the night we have worked on his comfort with waiting to be let out by making pots of coffee or walking past him to the bathroom before taking him outside to do his business. He now sits for up to 30 minutes patiently waiting for his turn to be let out rather than expecting to have our attention immediately.

Because the three adults who live in my parents' house full time all have different work routines that don’t facilitate consistent overlap in the mornings this adjustment to waiting for our attention allows my brother to get ready and leave for work without sending Tucker into an anxious frenzy or waking up other members of the household to sit with an anxious puppy at 5:00AM.

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

7. Individuals will vary

While I do believe we have made significant improvements in our approach to puppy training with Tucker I must give the little guy credit where credit is due. He never struggled, nipped, or howled when we tried to place him in his crate. As much as I would like to believe it is because we have mastered the art of crate-training Tucker’s intrinsic temperament has made our task easy.