Crate Training Your Dog:

A crate is a container large enough that your dog can comfortably stand and lie down in it when he’s fully grown, with a door you can shut to keep him in. Crate training can save your sanity and help you to set your dog up for other training successes by managing his environment when you are not there to reinforce desired behaviour. Unfortunately many dog owners rush the process and end up with a set of different problems.

Introducing the Crate:

The crate needs to be introduced as a place where good things happen. Forcing a dog in a crate is definitely not the way to create a good association.

Reward your dog for:
1. Looking at the crate.
2. Taking a step towards the crate.
3. Sniffing the crate.
4. Putting his head through the door.
5. Putting one foot in, then two.
6. Going in to explore the crate.
7. Staying quiet when you shut the door.

Reinforce this good experience by having other good things happen while your dog is in the crate. Give him his dinner there or give him a stuffed Kong toy or marrow bone to play with. When he’s ready for bed, wait till he is nearly asleep before putting him in and then sit with him, stroking him, for several minutes.

Teaching the Dog to Spend Time Alone:

It’s a fact of life that our dogs have to be alone sometimes. For working families, the dog is often alone for most of the day. Even if you work at home there are times you have to go out without your dog. Unfortunately being left alone is not natural to a dog. An abandoned pup would die and your pup instinctively understands that. He doesn’t know you are just going to bed. He doesn’t know you are going to work and will be back later. He doesn’t know you are going to the shop. He only knows he’s being left alone.

The best time to start teaching your dog to accept being alone in the crate is when he’s sleepy or when he is in the mood to be distracted by a meal, an appropriate bone or toy. The worst time is when the dog is overexcited, in the mood to play, or has just woken up from a long nap.
 

• Put the dog in the crate with something to occupy him and shut the door.

• Very matter-of-factly go about your business. For the first minute or so, stay in the room. If he looks for you, go over, open the door and pet him for a few seconds. Then close the door and go about your business again. Repeat until he gets interested in his toy or settles to nap. Go to him only when he is quiet. Do not reinforce whining, crying or barking with attention.

• When the dog is distracted, leave the room. After thirty seconds, return. If he is looking for you, go over, open the door and reassure him that you will always come back. Repeat until he takes little notice of you coming and going.

• Increase your time out of the room to one minute.

• If the dog drops off to sleep, leave him alone until he wakes then immediately take him out to toilet.

• If the dog finishes with his toy and doesn’t settle for a nap, end the session with a toilet break.

• In later sessions, you’ll be able to gradually increase your time away. Frequent trips back reassure your dog that you do come back.

Solving Crating Problems:

If your dog has a poor attitude towards the crate, go back to the beginning and progress through the steps, outlined above, at your dog’s pace.
Unfortunately, if your dog has formed a negative association towards the crate it may take quite a bit of time to undo the damage. If you can, find a temporary alternative to crating while you retrain the behaviour.

Using the Crate:

Once your dog is used to the crate, use it correctly to maintain the dog’s positive association.

• Make the crate a pleasant place to be. Find a treat that your dog particularly loves and give it to your dog as reinforcement for going into his crate on cue. Feed him in the crate.

• Encourage your dog to sleep in his crate. Carry sleepy puppies to their crates.

• Put a night-time crate in your bedroom, so your dog is close to the family at night instead of isolated.

• Put a daytime crate in your family room. Leave the door open when you are at home. If he goes in voluntarily, reward him.

• NEVER use the crate for punishment.

• An over-tired pup may benefit from a ‘time out’ in his crate. An over-excited, under-exercised pup will not. The crate is not a tool to contain puppy energy, this needs to be properly expended. Otherwise, puppies put energy into noisy, destructive behaviour.

• Crates are not substitute nannies. If you have a young or unreliable dog, watch him and train him. A crate doesn’t teach a dog to make good decisions; it simply prevents him from making poor ones.

• Dogs should never be crated for more that four hours at a time.

Your dog is referred to in the masculine tense. This is for ease of readership only and all advice is applicable to both sexes.

© Julie Pett