If you clicked on this video, you may be at the point with your puppy training,
where you want to start giving them a little bit more freedom from their crate.
You're a little bit concerned though,
because you don't know if you're going to get this
or this
in this video,
we're going to talk about a checklist that we've created for you to help you
transition your puppy out of their crate and into more freedom.
What's really important here is that you understand the when and the how about
how you're going to do that because it can make a really big difference.
So let's find out if your puppy is ready. I'm Ken Steepe,
and welcome back to McCann Dogs
here on our YouTube channel.
We publish videos every week to help you to overcome your puppy training
challenges. So if this is your first time on the channel,
make sure you hit that subscribe button so that I can help you to have a well
behaved four legged family member.
There's two aspects that you really need to focus on when you're getting to the
point where you want to give your dog a bit more time out of their crate.
And that is, is your dog ready for this type of freedom?
And are you ready for this type of freedom? Now,
when you're starting to wean off of the crate, it's a lot of work.
And I find sometimes people just cold Turkey,
your dog hits a certain age and then boom,
they're ready to work out of the crate.
And then sometimes people actually just throw their crates away.
And what you need to remember is that this is going to be a bit of a training
process, and you need to be ready to have some ups and downs and you know,
move forward with your progressions.
And then if you hit a bit of a road bump or your dog has an accident,
they choose something, you know, they're dogs. They're not going to be perfect.
We need to be prepared to dial it back.
Maybe use a little bit more crate time to kind of get through that little bump
of, of problems and then try it again.
So it's very important that you understand that you need to be flexible so that
you're going to have more success in the long run.
So one of the first things you need to think about is have you established a
puppy proof area in your house?
And if you think about it from your puppy's perspective,
there are temptations everywhere around the house.
And there was a really cute challenge going around social media,
not long ago where people would leave their dogs in a sit, stay,
and then put treats on the floor and then leave the room for a couple of
seconds.
And they would videotape to see whether their dogs would resist the temptation
and grab the food off of the floor or not. And lots of dogs were successful.
Lots of dogs were not. And if you sort of use that concept in your house,
the same things happen. If you, you know,
leave your dog to go to work for the day or, you know,
to go out for a little bit and you have, you know, shoes and you have, you know,
something thawing on the counter and you leftover treats in your pockets from
your training session the day before,
those could potentially be temptations that your dog will have a hard time
resisting in the beginning.
Now you're going to have to live your entire life by putting your shoes on the
top shelf. No, but in the beginning,
when you're trying to set your dog up to be successful,
make sure that when you leave the area that you're going to give your dog
freedom in that you've puppy proofed it a bit, make sure that you've resisted,
pick up all of those possible temptations to make it a much higher probability
that your dog's not going to make those poor choices. Now,
the kitchen is actually a really good place to start when you're starting to
test the waters and giving your dog a bit more freedom when you leave the house.
The nice thing about a kitchen is that usually pretty clean surfaces.
We can keep everything pretty elevated. Typically don't have carpet in here.
So if they do have an accident, it's easy to clean up.
But this is a great place to, to kind of begin seeing how things go.
One of the things that we really like to do is to barricade the kitchen off.
So the dog can't just roam into other parts of the house while we're gone.
They are sort of stationed to one particular location.
And then we puppy proof, you know, as much as we possibly can, you know,
things like this, like tea towels, puppies, love to jump up and grab tea towels.
So initially I might not leave this stuff around. I just might make it really,
really, really simple. We have chew bones in our kitchen.
I'm sure you guys have the same, but again,
there's always access to chew things if they want to, but they're good things.
There are things that they're supposed to chew.
So they really learn what to touch and what not to touch.
But kitchen is definitely one of the first places that I would,
that I would start with while your dog's in the kitchen and the area is
sectioned off.
It's a really good idea to still give your puppy access to the crate.
I have my water over here, but I'm going to leave the crate here with her bed.
I might put her bone or her toys in there as well.
Just leave the crate door open.
She's already used conditioned to go in there and rest, while you know,
I'm gone. So I want to keep that option open to her.
If she decides that's where she's going to be most comfortable. Now,
the next thing to check off our list is have you prepared your dog in order for
you to leave the house?
One of the things that we know about dogs is when they're properly,
mentally and physically stimulated,
they're far less likely to give bad behavior. So if you know,
you're going to be gone out for the day,
make a special effort to maybe get up a little earlier that day, or, you know,
go for a little bit of an extra walk or maybe play some retrieve,
make sure that they've gotten enough exercise that they're happy just lay down
and chillax while you're gone for the day. The other thing to note is that,
you know, sometimes if you're leaving,
it can be a little bit stressful for dogs if they're not used to it.
So it's a really smart idea to give them something to think about or to focus on
a few minutes before you leave. We like to start to introduce, you know,
things like peanut butter filled Kong, or one of their favorite bones.
And we would give that to our dogs before we leave.
But there's a bit of trick to it when you don't want to do is give them the item
and then leave directly because a lot of really smart dogs will put two,
two and two together.
It's actually a much smarter idea to give the dog some type of,
of item to distract them or to engage with them about 10, 15,
even 20 minutes before you leave that way,
your dog sort of thinking about their phone,
they're getting that peanut butter of the call,
and then you can quietly without making it a big deal,
just slip out the door and do your thing. Try not to make going.
And coming back a big deal for your dog that can actually boost the dogs,
you know, attention or anxiety in some cases.
So thorough exercise before you're going to meet them for a day and then give
something to think about and do so that you leaving is not the main focus. Now,
this might seem like an obvious one to you,
but make sure that your dog has relieved themselves before you leave.
Make sure that they've had a good pee and a good poop before it go.
There's nothing more stressful than leaving the house for a day,
knowing that your dog hasn't gone to the bathroom,
but exercise can actually help with that. Often,
if you go out and exercise your dog, walk your dog,
you're much more likely to go to the bathroom. And that way,
when you leave him for a few hours or whatever span of time that you're going
to, you can feel comfortable and happy that they're going to feel the same while
you're gone. Now I've been referring to leaving your dog for, you know,
a few hours or for the day, but we certainly don't want to start that way.
It's much better to test the waters with very short periods of time to make sure
that things are going to be okay. You could start with something simple, like,
you know, leaving your dog in, you know, what confined safe area while you,
you know,
go grab the mail or go to the store and grab some milk where you're going to be
gone for only a couple minutes at a time.
And then you're going to slowly build things from there,
provided that you have success. It's just like training any other behavior,
not going to, you know,
take your dog for an hour walk when you've not really mastered being able to
walk for a couple seconds or you're not going to leave your dog in a sit,
stay for, you know,
five minutes when you don't know if they could even stay for two seconds.
So we need to build on success. The other thing we can be really helpful,
and this is something that's both Ken and I have done is you can use a camera
with your dog when you leave. So set up a camera,
lots of cameras that you can get out there can actually attach to an app on your
phone. So sometimes when we're first starting to get the dog comfortable with us
leaving, we won't actually go anywhere.
We'll just come and sit in the car for a second and and check out what's
happening on the app.
So Hippy Shake's like just chewing her bone being such a
good girl.
This just gives us a really good indication on whether they're stressed.
Are they barking? Are they like gonna get into stuff? And that way,
if there was a problem, I get a run inside and deal with it right away.
Or I can just sit here and be proud of my dog.
So with regards to your dog being ready,
there's probably one major thing that I would focus on first.
And that is chewing.
That's one of the number one things that happens when we start to leave her dogs
out of their crate without supervision, and maybe they're not ready.
One of the most common things that we find dogs end up doing is chewing things
in their house that they're not supposed to. We've even heard of dogs chewing,
you know, baseboards or renovating kitchens while people have,
have gone out for the day. So, you know,
you want to make sure that if you're at home with your dog and you're able to
have them out in the house,
are they making good choices in your house in terms of chewing? Are they,
are they able to understand, you know, whether, you know,
the chew bone is something they should touch or whether they are chewing on the
bed or the, or the table leg,
if you can't remember the last time that they've chewed something,
or you had to tell them to leave something alone,
that might be a good indication that you can start whenever you're still getting
a little bit of chewing or stuff like that from time to time might not be ready.
Now,
the second thing you want to ask yourself is how good of a listener is your dog.
Now this is a bit of a sneaky one.
It's not one that people really coordinate or correlate with a crate training.
So I want you to think about things in your house like this,
your dog stop barking when you ask them to do,
they just generally hang out with you in the same room,
or are they off kind of doing their own thing. And they're not really trying to,
to make an effort to stick with you.
How do they behave when people come to the door,
do they leave things when you ask them to,
are they still doing some nipping and biting at you or maybe your children in
the house?
These are all indications that your dog's probably not ready to be given a lot
of extra freedom.
We like to use the crate to control these scenarios so that when we can't
supervise them and be right there to let them know that we like or dislike their
behaviors we need to crate them to make sure that they're not rehearsing those
things when we can't watch them.
So if you're still having a bit of behavioral issues or you're having issues
with your dog,
maybe not listening as well as they could suggest just waiting out in creating
them a little bit longer until some of those behavioral problems are a little
bit more solved.
And the next one to know whether your dog is ready for a little bit more freedom
out of their crate or not is, are they still having accidents in the house?
Now you've probably realized that using a crate can really,
really fast track your house training issues because you're able to watch them
much more easily.
You're able to direct them outside if you think they have to go to the bathroom.
But at some point,
the dog needs to be able to have a little bit more independence and
understanding of how to actually either ask you to go outside or how the
understanding of how to hold their bladder.
Some people make the mistake of letting their puppy out like every half hour and
they don't actually teach their dog to eventually put onus on them to ask you.
And when they're very young, it is a good idea to, you know,
get ahead of it and let them the puppy out on a more regular basis.
But as they start to get older, we would really recommend that,
that you teach them to ask you when they have to go outside.
And that's going to put a little bit more onus on them,
and it's going to teach them to have a little bit more control over their
bladder.
That's going to be the next step to being able to trust that when they're out of
their crate for longer periods of time, or maybe if you're going to leave that,
you know,
they clearly understand that they're not to go to the washroom in the house.
And so that one's really important to be established before you take the step of
weaning off of the crate, you're so silly. Now,
if you want to make sure that you can check off all the boxes that we've
discussed today, we've actually put together a PDF checklist for you.
That's downloadable in the description below. So make sure you check that out.
Remember, this is a training process,
so you don't have to be in a big rush to eliminate your crate from your everyday
life with your dog. In fact, if your dog really loves it,
there's no reason to get rid of it completely.
If that works for you and your family, you know,
Funkee Monkee is 13 years old and she still loves to go in. Her crate,
have a nap. She feels safe there. She really likes that.
So it's not something that, you know, I really want to take away from her,
but it's all going to be personal preference,
but you just need to make sure that before you'd make those decisions,
that you know that you're ready and be prepared to, to backtrack. If, and when.
Now that your puppy is spending more time out of their crate,
it's really important that you keep them engaged, exercise,
their brain and their body. When you're working with them,
it can help you avoid some of those really annoying nuisance behaviors.
Click that card right there.
That'll give you tons of opportunities and tons of different exercises to work
on with your puppy. If you're looking for a guided puppy training experience,
make sure you click the link in the description below to our puppy essentials,
online training program,
where you can work with one of us to make sure your puppy gets the best
information possible on that note. I'm Ken happy training.