If a dog spends too long in confinement, their muscle development and condition can be adversely affected. It is important that they have sufficient space and enrichment to maintain their mental and physical wellbeing.
If your dog whines or cries while in the crate at night, it may be difficult to decide whether your dog is simply whining to be let out of the crate, or to go outside to the toilet. If the problem becomes unmanageable, you may need to start the crate training process over again.
A crate is not a remedy for separation anxiety. A crate may prevent your dog from being destructive, but they may injure themselves attempting to escape from the crate. Separation anxiety problems can only be resolved with counterconditioning and desensitisation.
Information from: Dumb Friends League. All Rights Reserved. Categories Position statements What to do when Crate training your dog may take some time and effort, but is worth the effort. Selecting a crate A collapsible, metal crate is easy to put up and down, transport and move from room to room. Remember: the crate should always be associated with something pleasant.
Step 1: Introducing your dog to the crate Put the crate in an area of your house where the family spends a lot of time, such as the living room. Step 2: Feeding your dog meals in the crate After introducing your dog to the crate, begin feeding regular meals near the crate. Put the food dish as far inside as your dog will readily go without becoming fearful or anxious Each time you feed, place the dish a little further back in the crate Once your dog is standing comfortably in the crate to eat, you can close the door while your dog is eating Open the door as soon as the meal is finished At each feed leave the door closed a few minutes longer, until your dog is staying in the crate for ten minutes after eating If your dog whines to be let out, you may have increased the length of time too quickly.
Step 4: Crating your dog when left alone Once your dog is spending about 30 minutes in the crate without becoming anxious or afraid, you can begin leaving them crated for short periods when you leave the house. Put your dog in the crate using your regular command and a treat.
When your new dog or puppy first comes home, acclimate him to the crate by tossing a treat in, leaving the door open so that the dog can enter and exit freely. When your dog is comfortable going in and out of the crate, toss a treat inside and close the door for a second or two before letting the dog out. Place a bed or mat that your dog already likes into the crate. This will help reduce any startling noises when the dog enters the crate. The dog will also be familiar with the bed, which could make him more willing to go into the crate.
When you are not training, leave the crate open and place your dog's toy basket or favorite toys inside. Feed your dog meals in the crate, starting by leaving the door open and, as training progresses, closing it. If you give your dog any special treats, chewies, or bones, give them to him in the crate. A special bonus of having the mat in the crate is that the dog will begin to associate good things with the mat after being fed on it.
Take the mat with you to the vet. Place it on the floor in the waiting room, on the scale, and in the exam room to help your dog become more comfortable and relaxed during vet visits. When the dog is going into the crate willingly, add a cue for entering the crate. Try "crate" or "bed" or "go in. Soon your dog or puppy will be going into the crate on cue and eagerly. Next, give the crate cue and wait for the puppy to go in on its own.
Stop tossing the treat and wait for the puppy to enter. When the dog does go in, say "Yes! Start training a release cue at this time. The release cue tells your dog when he or she is free to leave the crate. This training step has the added benefit of encouraging and increasing self control.
Your dog learns to remain calm and not rush out, even with the crate door wide open. Cue the entrance, mark with yes or click, and treat. Almost immediately, say your release cue try "ok," "free," "break," or "get out" and toss a treat on the floor outside of the crate.
Keep tossing treats until the dog can leave the crate without seeing the treat; the dog exits just hearing the release cue. At that point, you can phase out the treat. Leaving the crate has become the reward. If your dog is comfortable with the door closed for a few seconds, gradually increase the time the dog is in the crate. Remember to keep using a release cue to tell the dog that he can leave. If your dog does not have a problem remaining in the crate calmly for several minutes, start closing the door and ducking out of sight for a second before returning.
Gradually build up the amount of time your dog is in the kennel. If the dog starts to whine, ignore him, letting the dog out once he is calm. If you want to leave your dog in the crate for longer periods, try putting a stuffed Kong, a bully stick, or a safe chewie into the crate as well.
All through this training process it is important to be patient and not to push your dog. Ask for what your dog is comfortable with rather than forcing your dog to do what you want. Crate training is best done in baby steps. If you can get your dog or puppy comfortable with the crate before the first night in it, your odds of getting a good sleep that night will be much higher.
Once your dog is crate trained and house trained fully, you can leave the dog in a crate for up to 8 hours. The dog should have good exercise before and after, and should be left in the crate with something safe to occupy his attention.
Your dog will likely spend most of the time sleeping! Younger puppies cannot be left in a crate for as long as 8 hours. Physically, puppies cannot hold their bladders long enough, and it isn't fair to ask for that.
A good general rule to follow is one hour in the crate for each month of age. A three-month-old puppy should be fine in the crate for three hours. Puppies should sleep in their crates at night, as this helps them learn to sleep through the night.
Place the crate directly beside your bed in early first training so that your puppy will not feel lonely and frightened, and can wake you easily in the middle of the night for a bathroom break. While some dogs take naturally to a crate, others are not as eager. Puppies, as early as 8 week old, can be left behind in a crate up to however old they are in months plus one hour. Remember to make use of the crate to assist your 8 week old puppy to acclimate to it easier, get your pup really tired and then let him have a nap in his new house.
Your puppy is young and only has a short attention span, so initially spend only 3 to 5 minutes at a time doing this training and then take a break to do something else.
The last thing you want to do is create a bad experience. Likewise, if your puppy becomes stressed at any of the early stages in the process above, especially when the door is closed, go back a couple of steps to an earlier time where they again feel happy and can succeed.
As a general rule of thumb you want to have had your puppy be successful a good 10 times at any one step before moving on to the next one. Taking things slowly and allowing your puppy to succeed often, before making things harder and asking for more will keep them enthusiastic and happy.
This will help to avoid any feelings of being alone, of being abandoned and associating these feelings with the crate. Crate them little and often while you are in the same room. For instance when you vacuum, when you eat a meal, or when you relax and read the paper. To speed up their acceptance of the crate you should leave the crate open and accessible to your puppy all day every day.
Leave a couple of their favorite toys in there, and now and then go and place some treats inside to encourage them to wander in of their own accord and find wonderful things about the crate outside of training.
Another great tip is when you see your puppy nodding off during the day, gently persuade them to go to the crate to sleep. If they fall asleep elsewhere, gently pick them up on to their feet and keep them moving, get them to the crate. This will slowly teach them in time to go to their crate when tired. It will become their default sleeping area and this will massively help speed up their love of the crate and the training process. This keeps your puppies mind occupied in the crate and helps to stave of boredom and prevents their minds drifting to plans of escape.
If your puppy gets to a stage in the process where the door is closed and they make a huge fuss crying trying to get out, the worst thing you can do is to let them out in this state. This will teach them whining and crying gets them out and we really do not want this. We want the opposite, to teach them being calm and quiet is what gets them rewarded and released. You should probably go back a few steps in the training. This will teach them that being quiet is the only way to get you to come to them.
As you approach, if they start to scream again, simply ignore them. Then praise and reward the quiet. They will soon get the idea but it will require patience…and maybe ear plugs…on your part. I recommend and have always followed myself a nice gentle routine such as above when it comes to crate training my dogs.
Some people may not have the time to dedicate perhaps weeks to the process or just really need to use a crate in a much quicker time. If this is you, I recommend you check out this link to the weekend crate training guide from pets. Indeed my method and theirs agrees on a lot of points. The general advice is you can crate your puppy for a time in hours equal to the age they are in months plus one. The problem with rules of thumb such as this are that all dogs are different.
Some puppies are able to hold their bladder for 3 hours at 12 weeks, others are not. So taking the best of not crating before 9 weeks, never exceeding 5 hours at any one time and taking into account the fact puppies physical maturity varies, the best I can suggest is the following:.
And please, have your puppy out of the crate as much as and as long as possible. By taking on board everything said in this very detailed article, you should now be able to train your puppy to happily and calmly spend time in their crate.
All it requires is to follow the rules and steps laid out above and the patience and dedication to see it through calmly and methodically. But there will be a follow-up article in a couple of weeks addressing common problems and how to overcome them. This was part 6 in an 8-part series that details everything you need to know about the use of a crate and crate training your puppy.
The information applies equally well to dogs of all breeds and not just Labradors. We routinely update our articles to show the most current information. For a list of all the supplies we get for our new service dog puppies check out our New Puppy Checklist on the PuppyInTraining.
Thanks for finally writing on this topic, I really liked it and will follow the advice. I read the articles in the rest of the series and have been waiting for instructions to start crate training my Lab puppy.
My Stella chews everything! This should really help. Crating is a good way to stop bad chewing habits forming.
Only to be used when you really cannot keep an eye on her. Thanks for writing this informative article. My husband and I just got a 10 week old chocolate labrador puppy. I wanted to crate train her, but it may be too late now because we have been putting her in there to sleep at night.
My question is, where should we let her sleep if not in the crate? When she cries at night, do not go to her, do not make a fuss, just completely ignore her.
When she cries and whines in the crate, the absolute last thing you want to do is go to her and give attention of any description, either good or bad. Any attention she receives will likely reinforce her behavior because you will inadvertently teach her that if she makes a noise for long enough, eventually you will come. You absolutely must just ignore the noise, no matter how heart breaking it sounds or how much sleep you are deprived of, just ignore it.
And when you go to her in the morning to let her out, you should go to the crate and patiently wait there for silence before you give any attention or let her out. You need to react to and reward quiet, never the noise. To her, going in the crate to sleep at night is entirely different to being crated during the day, entirely different again to being crated when you leave the house, and different again to using the crate as her own special den and place to go to for calm and quiet.
You should still crate train her, to teach her to be happy with being crated and to use it herself.
But to crate train her during the day as you were aiming to. Thank you Chan for your great question as I had the same one. And thank you James for the wonderful article and also for your responses. However, other puppies require a slower approach like what is outlined in the article. Good luck with your training! What a wonderful article! However I am about to become a foster mum to a 13mth old Malamute x husky rescue dog who has moderate food aggression.
Do you have any advice in regards to this situation? I keep reading conflicting views on whether to feed a resource guarding dog in a crate or not. Some advise it, others do not. Dogs already see their crate as their own, and if they are prone to food guarding it might have some sort of stacking affect making her doubly on guard. How dare you come near!! But then on the flip side of that, depending on the situation, feeding her in the crate may at least prevent things getting worse as half of any behavioral modification battle is management of the problem, with the other half being training.
But it would benefit her greatly to be able to eat alone, in peace, and not have situations arise where she feels she needs to guard her food. This can be achieved by making sure every person in the home knows not to approach her while eating, but also keeping other pets away too. Moving forward though, I would use as many meal times as possible as an opportunity to treat her food guarding problem.
The following two articles from Dr. Sophia Yin regarding food aggression are fantastic as is nearly all of her work. Treatment of Food Aggression in Dogs is About Finesse, Not Force — Read the whole article and also watch the second video about Ben the Golden Retriever and his food guarding to see the results of her methods.
We have 2 minpins one of which was a obtained as a puppy and the larger minpins was acquired around 2 years old. We believe he had 2 owners before staying in our home. Here is the issue we me are having. Finally, I believe he all of us let the him out enough, with commands to potty seems trustworthy to leave him alone for an hour or 2. Any info on this behavior is great. I love animals and tell her to play with the dogs and be warm and friendly, gaining the trust of the animal.
Stick to religiously house training them, supervising them when out of the crate and confining them when you cannot watch them. If they have gone a solid 6 weeks or more without once ever trying to urinate anywhere in the home, you can try leaving them alone in a familiar room and see what happens.
You need to give them freedom out of the crate, but be watching them closely, to intervene and re-direct their pottying to the right place. There is no other way for them to learn. Good luck…with the minpins and the mother My husband and I will be picking up our lab puppy in just about 1 month.
She will be 7 weeks and 4 days. However, this is still a long time for an week old puppy. Any suggestions? Also, I know you said to put some kind of bedding in the crate, but if we are still working on potty training, what do you recommend?
We also have an elderly cat. I advise the use of an exercise pen in my guide to house training a puppy. Clicking here takes you right to the section in question. Ideal As I advise in my product guide for house training , I would place a tarpaulin sheet underneath the exercise pen to protect your carpet. They have quite a range available on Amazon.
For the bedding to use in a crate, you can read my opinion by clicking here. Basically, to start with I always say VetBed. Permeable, easily washable, extremely durable, soft enough to be comfortable. It ticks all the right boxes. They are usually scented to encourage a puppy to pee on them, the exact opposite of what you want to happen in the crate.
But you cannot avoid this. Your puppy has to go somewhere and I cannot think of a better solution than on puppy pads, in a tray, on tarpaulin sheets in their exercise pen. This will keep your floors clean and be easiest for you to clean up when you get home too.
You should initially place some paper around the pads too so it catches any misses Though do expect some paper and pad shredding to occur for the first few days or more. I use a similar set up when I have a puppy and have to leave them alone. Thank you for this article! I am not keen on any of those methods for my pup. My puppy is 5 months old and I tried hard to crate train her early on we got her at 8 weeks , but I think I screwed it up somewhere along the way and she learned to bark in her crate in order to be released.
Sometimes she will wake up and we are still driving, and I soothe her verbally as I do at night until we can stop for a break. I am trying to avoid her starting to bark, which was starting to become a habit and she still does it sometimes. I think she learned quickly that barking would get her out ooops!! If only I could start over! Right now I sometimes leave her in the car crate for very short periods of times while I dash into the store to grab something, or use a public washroom while on the road.
I have started your protocol. I closed the door and set the timer for 7 minutes. I clicked and treated for random intervals of 5, 10, 15, 25, 30, 45, and 60 seconds, during this 7 minutes. I varied between being in the room and out of the room. She did great! No barking and she just lay there and waited. I was nervous she would start barking at 60 seconds, but she was able to do it. So I wanted some more details on how to increase the time from 1 — 30 minutes.
How many times should I practice per day? How do I practice this in the car? Put her in the crate, close the back door of the car, do the timing thing, then open the back door of the car, click, open the crate door, and treat? And then close the crate door, close the car door, time, etc, and repeat?
I know you say to put high value chew toys in there — If I do that, she will definitely chew on them and not be interested in the click-treat game. As you can see, I am really keen on getting this right this time around! I know I should have practiced more alone-time for her from the very beginning, and this kind of crate training.
Too bad! But we did really well on some other things. Secondly, thank you for the positive feedback on the article! Always nice to hear Some will go of their own accord and spend time alone for perhaps hours without being asked, others can be so attached to their owners that leaving them alone for too long too soon can lead to separation anxiety.
Some can progress very quickly, others need more time. But if they are happy spending 2 hours alone in the crate, adding 10s is pointless! So at 90s I would only add 10s for my next target, but at half hour I would feel happy to add 5 minutes. So try to make the max time increase by 10s each time until you get to about 5 minutes, then increase by 30s at a time until you get to 15 minutes, then increase by a minute and so on.
A bit of guess work and nothing set in stone, but small steps relative to the total time if you know what I mean?
How many times should you practice each day? You might have to take a step back sometimes to shorter time periods if she starts to fail before progressing again. But the sooner you get going the better. So by teaching a bark on cue, then a quiet on cue, you improve your chances of success by asking for quiet and knowing that she understands the command.
I think this will help in your situation. Finally, yes, your steps for training in the car sound good to me. The same as you would in the house, just in a different location. Well, this method really works. Happy to report that working slowly and consistently really pays off. I left the room and she chewed on those for about 8 minutes. When I heard her stop with that, I came back in, took the Kong away so she only associates the really good stuff being available when I am not in the room , and she lay down right away without a peep, and fell asleep.
She slept soundly in there for about 50 minutes. Once, she woke up and had a little scratch, and looked at me, but I just ignored her and she lay down again and fell asleep for a little longer.
I waited for 5 minutes before letting her out. Only two click-treats in that time. When I return, I take that high value thing away. I also realized that after a long walk to which we often drive to , I can leave her in the car in the crate sleeping for awhile because she always falls asleep in the car-crate after our long afternoon walk.
Before, I was driving home and then getting her up again and she would be tired but kind of energized again. Yesterday she slept in the car crate alone for 30 minutes, though I am sure she could have gone a bit longer. I am not sure what her reaction would be. I wonder if she would start barking for me. What do you think?
And would you do the same click-treat at random intervals in the morning when she wakes up? Click-treat in the morning too? I tried it this morning for 10 minutes. Or do puppies just wake up early and I can look forward to more sleep in the future??? Thanks for the suggestion about the bark-on-cue…. Great guide, best one out there for sure. If anyone is thinking about starting this I would really recommend it and just be patient and have trust it will work with practice.
Just a quick question — I wanted to know what you would suggest for the morning. She sleeps in her crate by my bed. This morning she woke up at am and started pawing at the door to get out. I ignored her, and she started to bark.
Not too crazily, but she would bark a few times, stop and be quiet for a little, then bark some more. The other day I got up and did 10 minutes of click-treat for quiet, but this morning I just flat out ignored the barking.
After she was quiet again for sometimes this went on until am , I let her out and took her out to the bathroom, and we started the day. She eats breakfast around What would you suggest for the barking in the crate, first thing in the morning?
Ignore, or click-treat method? I need to eliminate her — pm nap the night before. Well done! YOU need to decide the time to get up, not your puppy, and if you let her decide even two or three times by you getting up and going to her she can learn to do it again and again. However, if the barking occurs on too many consecutive mornings even though you ignore her, that can become habit and a real problem.
There is a commonly offered way to address it…though you may not like the sound of it if you like your sleep…Get up BEFORE your puppy, before they have a chance to bark, so she learns she can get attention and your company in the morning without having to bark.
You can then push the time out by a few minutes each day and expect her not to bark, until you reach the time after a few days that YOU want to be getting up and not her. Quite a way down in the article, under the title: What if the dog never stops whining? They will associate the reward and being let out with giving you a sit or their attention on cue, they never get rewarded for crying.
Have a quick read, it sounds fair advice to me. One final thing: I totally agree with you that you should stop her 8 o clock nap at night. I do understand you wanting quiet time, but putting her to bed rested not long after will be working against you. Try eliminating this nap so she is tired for bed, not well rested, while at the same time working on a method to cure morning barking.
Once the morning barking habit has been broken, you should be able to let her nap at night again. Have you followed a structured training program? You should try going a few steps back in the training above to a point where she is succeeding, then move forward again more slowly, not moving out of her comfort zone until she is ready.
Some puppies can take many weeks of training before they are happy left alone crated. I work 8 hr shifts and wont be able to let him out for breaks during this time.
At what age do I take that space away? Also… is it bad to allow him to sleep with me and instead of sleeping in his crate at night? I cannot stress enough how important and beneficial this is to a dog and their quality of life. Finally, is it OK to have him sleep in your room? I know many people who have their dog sleep in their bedroom every single night; some sleep in a crate, some on the floor, some on the bed. Both they and their dogs are very happy with it. So go for either never in your room, maybe now and then as a treat , or always in your room.
Just got a 13 week old puppy 6 days ago. While we have gotten to be more successful with nighttime crating, we just got a written notice that a neighbor complained about barking throughout the day while we are gone our apartment building is VERY tolerant of dogs so this stings a lot!
We have a family member come halfway through my 6 hour day to let him out for a bit. Because he has improved a lot at night, I am hopeful that just a few days of daytime crate practice will be enough to stop the frequent barking. But is this counterproductive? If your mum can take and train him while you work, this will benefit. BUT…it will help some, for sure, so carry on with the idea. Secondly, are you leaving him with any toys to keep him occupied?
But he should have some comforting toys and chew toys to occupy him. You can try closing the curtains and shutting out any distractions from the outside world that might be making him either anxious or over-excited. This often works. Also, I hear have never tried quiet and gentle music, or a TV on low — the volume people would talk at in your home — so he can hear sounds and human voices has a calming effect and quietens down a puppy. When a dog or puppy is comfortable in a crate, they are far more likely to relax and chill out compared to having more freedom in the house.
Also, as I mentioned above, train him being alone and quiet is the right thing to do. I will be getting a golden the end of Aug at 8 weeks old. Obviously my crate is an XL crate. There are also some dividers available on Amazon that you can find by clicking here. You will have to measure your crate and see if one fits it. If that fails, you could — depending on your skills — make a DIY divider with some board or chicken wire from a hardware store?
We want the puppy safe. Grizzly no longer uses the crate lol. I am loving all the ideas. Thanks so much. No problem, Robyn. My husband and I just brought home a chocolate lab puppy yesterday and he will be 9 weeks old tomorrow.
Once he was quite at 6AM I went to take him outside and he was up until we left for work. The only accident was at 3AM and I think he was just excited to see one of us. We are planning to crate train and the crate will be arriving today. We might not have a lot of time to get him to love his crate before closing him in it for bed tonight.
Or would you recommend putting the crate in the contained kitchen with the door open and let him go in it himself to sleep so he can get used to the idea of it? Any advice would be great! The thing with closing the door on him when crated at night before crate training is: They do not see this the same as being crated during the day. Dogs do not generalize well, meaning things they learn and experience in one location or environment is not the same as learning or experiencing something in another location.
So closing them in their crate the first night is almost always OK and will not damage your crate training. Many people do this. And of course blankets, a teddy bear for company and so on. Hi , I really enjoyed your article. I have a question about crate training. I will let him out of the crate every 30 to an hour to go potty outside which he will do, but then I will let him play and he will potty again in the house , sometimes several times.
Am I suppose to immediately put him back in the crate once I let him outside? I hate to keep him in there all day for the sake of housebreaking him but when I do take him out he still does it in the house too. Just wondering if I am doing something wrong. He is almost 11 weeks old. No, free time to explore and live life is important, so the idea is really to keep crating to a minimum if you can.
Only popping him in when you know he is due to potty so you can prevent accidents and then take him to the correct spot. A couple of things: An 11 week old puppy will often urinate after any excitement, so playing with him as you describe can lead to him needing to go again.
Secondly, are you cleaning up thoroughly with enzymatic cleaners that truly eradicate any sense of the smell? Using normal household cleaners works for us, but long after we think the area is clean there can still be traces of urine that is enough to make a dog want to urinate in the spot again.
So make sure to clean thoroughly. If they have too large an area to roam it makes it extremely hard to prevent accidents. Perfect is a crate attached to a puppy play pen, or just baby gating off the rest of the house and keeping puppy in one room. Fourthly is that even a word? As long as you are supervising him, catch him in the act, intervene and then take him to the right spot, then praise heavily when he goes there outside I presume?
You just have to make sure he is always supervised and every time he makes a mistake he is caught and redirected to the correct place. Any mistake not caught and he will think he has done the right thing pottying inside. He got rewarded by feeling relieved.
Finally, if he is going incredibly often, more so than you think is actually reasonable or normal, he could have a slight medical issue urinary tract infection or other minor ailments so it might be worth seeing your vet, explaining the situation and having him health checked. I found your blog very informative. However, she likes to plop down, and lay, and not go to the bathroom! It seems to be a routine more times than not, that we go outside and she refuses to walk.
Should I take this as a sign she does not have to go to the bathroom, and bring her right back in? She is very distracted and unless we are the only ones within her sight, she can not focus on doing her business. Any tips to reduce distractibility? I have a very hard time deciphering whether she cries to be let out, or she simply wants out of the crate.
Last night I went to the living room and spoke to her in a calm voice and she fell back asleep each time.
Yet, somewhere between 2 and 4 am she went to the bathroom in the crate. My puppy is about 14 weeks old. I live in an apartment so i am worried about her barking and waking my neighbors in the middle of the night!! What should i be doing?? Just take her to the spot and do nothing — Literally nothing, until she goes. Try extending the time between her bathroom breaks by 5 or 10 minutes.
If it still occurs, extend by another 5 to 10 minutes until when you;re taking her outside she goes within a few minutes. But make sure she is on leash so cannot roam off, explore and get distracted. All you can do is take her on leash, not allow her to roam off at all, keeping her by your side until she goes. Keep the leash VERY short so she really cannot move. Are you removing water a couple of hours before bed, and making sure she has a toilet break and is empty before bed?
If so, she should be able to last the night at 14 weeks. I would say her crying — particularly as often as you say at every hour or two — is just to get attention.
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