At dogtrainingworldwide.com we suggest all our clients to crate train their dogs. A crate is not only a wonderful training aid, but you never know what may lie ahead in the future of the dog. Perhaps the dog suffers an injury and has to stay at the pet hospital over night or for an extended period of time. He will be put in a crate and you will not be able to be there to make it better for him. So why not look ahead and introduce the crate as something positive to him. Another reason a dog may have to be trained to be in a crate is for travel or relocation. One of the highest stress factors for dogs that are not crate trained when travelling is the fact that they are in a crate and do now know how to deal with this.
A dog crate is a positive place, it is the dogs home within a home, it is not a place where the dog is sent off for being punished. You must create the reward history of the crate to create this association. Some dogs take to it easier than others but the earlier you start with it, the better.
If you want to have a more moveable crate you can also use wire crates but we always prefer using fully enclosed dog travel crates.
There are different methods of training your dog to enjoy the crate. The fastest one, albeit not necessarily the best one is to simply put your dog in the crate at night, shut the door and leave him there no matter how much he cries to be let out. Of course you must have a grasp of how long your puppy can go without urinating. One of the benefits of crate training is that dogs being den animals do not like to defecate or urinate where they sleep. This is what you can take to your advantage in house breaking your puppy. If the crate is appropriately sized, he will not soil it. If it is too big you can simply close off half of it with a box or something similar. Put your dog inside the crate, close the door and let him figure out that nothing will happen to him. This technique is called flooding and may work with some dogs but not with all. If you do this do not open the crate door when the dog is barking, scratching or whelping, otherwise this will also create rewards history and your puppy will have learned that crying, barking or anything similar will get him what he wants, in this case for the door to be opened. But do let him out when he needs to go to the bathroom.
A slower approach to flooding is systematic desensitisation which is especially useful if your puppy has already established any negative association with the crate and also if you have time at your disposal or do not require to crate him for his own safety.
In this approach you will treat he crate as a piece of furniture and don’t pay any attention to it for three days. Detach the door and leave the crate close to where your puppy spends most of his time. If you created a play pen for him you can also place the crate inside the play pen if its large enough, it can be placed on the terrace or in a room where he sleeps or spends time with you. Feed him inside of his crate, without the door and even without a bowl, simply take a handful of kibble and throw it inside the crate on the plastic floor.
Leave his favourite chew toy & a comfortable doggy bed… during the day inside the crate, you can even fill up a kong
…or something similar and secure it to the crate with a cable tie or a string so he cannot retrieve it and take it out of the crate.
After a few days your puppy should be comfortable getting inside the crate, he may even anticipate doing so as soon as he hears his food bowl. Attach the door and start locking your dog in while he is eating. Leave him inside for 5 – 10 minutes after he has finished eating. Remember to never open the door when he has been barking or showing any unwanted behavior.
Next start increasing the amount of time your dog spends inside the crate. It helps if you combine this with nap time after a play session, it also helps to crate your dog after a training session so they can process what they have learned, and as mentioned before for feeding and after feeding time.
Caress and pet your dog while he is inside the crate and show him that it is his personal space to which he can retreat whenever he wants to.
If your dog is uneasy inside the crate, it may help to cover it with a blanket or have it close to where you are. Do not reinforce bad behaviour by throwing treats inside the crate. Instead when he calms down you can walk by and throw some kibble or treats in through the cracks on the side.