Dog lovers - crate training?

[rockymtngirl]

We have a 6 month old puppy who I need to work on crate training with. We got her when she was 10 weeks old pre-Covid and we were working & at school. She was crated when we left and I would come home a few times a day to let her out for potty breaks. Since quarantine started she has only needed to be crated a few random times when we happen to go somewhere we can’t take her. She hates it!!! She cries and cries and claws and digs at the bottom trying to get out. I’m 98% sure she will bark the while time we are gone and doesn’t chill out. I had a blanket over the top to try to make it more den like and she managed to eat a huge chunk of it!

I will be home now until September with my kids so I figure I have a good opportunity to teach her good crate behaviour before she actually needs to be left alone for long periods again.

I’d love to hear your experience in getting a dog to be okay with being left in a crate while you are gone. We have the crate in a main living area (between our living room and dining area). She’ll often go in on her own and snooze or chew on a bone while the kids are doing homework or we’re eating dinner. The other day when she went in and laid down I tried closing the door to get her used to it while we are here but she immediately started clawing around and crying.

So tips or resources would be fantastic!!

[circa1978]

This is going to be a major problem with everyone who got puppies and dogs during COVID. Our breeder sent out a reminder to everyone (our puppy is now 1.5 old) for new and older dogs to make sure to keep up with crating them a little bit of time while you are "home" - this can be on the back deck or for short trips out of the house for a drive or whatever. Every day.

For your little one, she's already going in there with bones so start feeding her in there with the door open. Leave treats in there. Make it a happy place. Is she not crated at night? I'd be doing that as well, personally, at her age.

www.humanesociety.org/resources/crate-training-101

[rockymtngirl]

Thanks for the link, I’ll check that out. She’s not crated at night. We actually stopped when our vet recommended letting her out to see if it would help her sleep through the night. She sleeps on her bed beside us for the night with no issues.

[devonpow]

When we did crate training we would give treats when she went in. We would shut the door and give treats when she wouldn’t whine over the door being closed (slow initial process but only took a few times of repetitive shutting the door/reward when no whining or pawing/ repeat). Then we had a blanket over the crate and would cover it when she began to whine in the crate. If we had 20 seconds of no whining we would lift the blanket (she wanted to watch/be involved) and give her a treat. When she started whining again, repeat. We would randomly crate her during the day with us in the room and pursued if it and for varying lengths of time. Didn’t take too long and she was great with crating. We also would do “fake departures” where we would act as if we were leaving (keys, coats etc) but not actually leave to desensitize her a bit to the excitement/stress of us getting ready to go.

Of course now she’s been sleeping in bed with me and DH since she was hospitalized in February and we haven’t crated her since quarantine began so I shouldn’t talk lol. She’s 3.5 so we only really need to crate her when our cleaning lady comes but this is a good reminder that I need to get her back on a schedule with that.

[waverly]

Our pup is crated at night and meal times. She is a rescue so she sniffs around when we eat, and it’s annoying. So she is crated 4 times a day (3meals and let out shortly after) and bedtime. She gets a treat each time.

[imojoebunny]

I would try crate training her in a room you are not in, even when you are home, if possible. I do not sleep with our dogs, they are limited to our family room and kitchen floor where we spend most of our time. I SAH most of the time, but we, in normal times travel a lot, often with the dogs, but not always, but dogs really like routine, so even if you could have a time, like three to five hours a day, where you crate her, since you will be crating her in the future, it would be a good thing to work on. Even SAH, I crated my first dog for at least a year when I left the house or was not around to watch, with my second, I did not, past about 6 months, and I seriously regret that choice. He does things when no one is watching that are very annoying, even at 2.5, and I feel like a lot of that is because he was allowed to have the time to get into stuff, without anyone watching, which let him develop some bad habits.

[pinkballoons]

My ten-year-old dog still eats meals in his crate. When he was a puppy, he enjoyed all of his super exciting treats in the crate. We have a Molly Mutt crate cover on top and his favorite blanket inside.

Sleeping is also a good crate activity. Initially I kept the crate next to my side of the bed so he could sense I was there and slowly moved it to another part of the house once he got comfortable with crating. He was exhausted at night anyway, so it was less of a battle than trying to work on crate training in the middle of the day when he was wired. Just because she starts sleeping in her crate at night doesn’t mean she has to forever, but I found it really useful with a headstrong dog.

Try to build a “leaving the house” routine to normalize things as much as possible. Ours includes sending him “to bed” (his crate) and turning on NPR for background noise. Even now, we try to crate him a few times a week while we do short errands just for consistency. He probably could free roam in the house now, but he’s content in his crate so we keep using it. The routine will help you normalize your response to crating her. If you’re giving off any trepidation about crating, she’ll feed on that and run with it.

[mrsukyankee]

We're going to be using a playpen versus a crate. We currently feed our puppy in the crate as well as have a pee spot and a bed. We've only had our puppy for 2 weeks so we're just trying to make it a lovely place right now and are leaving him in there and closing the door when we're next to it and he's being fed. We'll leave him in there more and more over time.

[dirtyred]

I could never get my dog comfortable with being in a crate no matter what I did (tried every trick/routine recommended).  She just doesn't like being confined.  We ended up gating her in a room until we were confident she wouldn't get into trouble if she was loose in the house.

[liverandonions]

May 28, 2020 0:08:45 GMT -5 pinkballoons said:

My ten-year-old dog still eats meals in his crate. When he was a puppy, he enjoyed all of his super exciting treats in the crate. We have a Molly Mutt crate cover on top and his favorite blanket inside.

Sleeping is also a good crate activity. Initially I kept the crate next to my side of the bed so he could sense I was there and slowly moved it to another part of the house once he got comfortable with crating. He was exhausted at night anyway, so it was less of a battle than trying to work on crate training in the middle of the day when he was wired. Just because she starts sleeping in her crate at night doesn’t mean she has to forever, but I found it really useful with a headstrong dog.

Try to build a “leaving the house” routine to normalize things as much as possible. Ours includes sending him “to bed” (his crate) and turning on NPR for background noise. Even now, we try to crate him a few times a week while we do short errands just for consistency. He probably could free roam in the house now, but he’s content in his crate so we keep using it. The routine will help you normalize your response to crating her. If you’re giving off any trepidation about crating, she’ll feed on that and run with it.

My dog enjoys Yacht Rock on amazon music

[circa1978]

liverandonions, LOL, so do I. I have a rule that only Yacht Rock or Jimmy Buffet can be played in our convertible. Our puppy prefers Claude Debussy - Clare de Lune knocks him out every time.

[glitzy07]

One other thing to consider is what kind of crate you have. Our old dog, a weimaraner, started out in a crate that was all metal and it was located in our back entry. He could see everything outside all day long and eventually found a way to tear that crate apart to get out. It was too stimulating for him to see everything. We then got one of the crates that is all plastic except for the door and small openings on each side. He did SO much better in that crate. When we moved to our current house, that crate lived in the closet that is under the stairs (with the door open, obviously). He then wasn't taunted by anything and slept super soundly all day, except when someone came to the door.

[Leeham Rimes]

We went through a lot of crate drama with Frank, even though his previous owners SWORE he loved the crate, he had major crate anxiety with us. He even pooped himself out of anxiety in the crate.

We tried several different crates, wired, enclosed, soft sided. He went ballistic in both the wired crate and the enclosed crates, but it was worse with the enclosed crates, he even chewed out of the soft sided crate we got. We went with a traditional wired crate with a fluffy blanket at the bottom (we had a few dog beds, but he chewed them all up). Everything good happens in his crate. We feed him in his crate, we give him treats in his crate, we put new toys in his crate. When we feed him, I close and lock the crate. In the beginning, it was pretty terrible.  We'd crate him for short stints while I was working at home, I'd crate him for short stints, just getting the mail (we have a mail center, not a mail box so it's a bit of a walk). He'd whine and cry but I ignored it and didn't let him out until he stopped whining. For longer stints, we'd give him a peanut butter kong so he'd be distracted for at least a little while. I also read that when you come home, the first thing NOT to do is let the dog out immediately, I forget the reasoning behind it, but we followed that advice and only let him out once he was calm (not rewarding the freak out behavior or something). I also got calming spray and a thunder shirt and adaptil plug ins. I have *no* idea if those worked or not to be honest.

In the beginning we had a video camera that had the ability to speak over it and I'd monitor him and if he started wailing, I'd talk to him through the camera and that seemed to work. It took a solid three months before he could chill out in the crate. Even now, he'll still cry a little bit but I don't need to monitor him over the camera as much any more. It was not an overnight success. Like, at all. He's the hardest dog I've ever had.  While he doesn't love his crate still, he's come a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way from pooping all over himself in it. lol.