Puppy crate training does not have to be stressful.
It's a really important part of raising a puppy and doing so without
endangering them when you can't watch them.
We all have really busy lives and we need to make sure that we have an
opportunity to do the things that we need to do and keep our puppies safe in the
meantime.
So today I'm here with Nancy and she has got some questions surrounding crate
training and some things that she wants to clarify with crate training.
How are you today, Nancy? I'm.
Good. Perfect.
and sort of what's your experience been so far with crate training with
this wonderful young puppy? She's 11 weeks old.
Uh, well she, we, we play a game, I guess is what you.
Say.
Um, she was very interested in her crate when she first came home. Okay. So,
you know, I did the, you know, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Mm-hmm. .
But now she's realized that like if I get to about here on the crate,
mama's gonna gimme all the, all the treats.
Okay.
And you know, but when mama wants her to actually be in her crate, it's a no-go.
Like she knows, she knows the difference between like,
I just want treats and mama's gonna put me away. .
Okay.
So, and then she cries bloody murder.
For.
Too long and it breaks my heart and then I don't know what to do. .
Oh, okay. Well we can definitely help with some of these things today.
So first off, what I want to talk about is the setup of the crate. Mm-hmm.
.
So there's a couple of different times you're gonna use the crate and crate
guilt is real,
but you need to just put that in the back of your head because you're keeping
your puppy safe.
You are ensuring that she is not gonna get into mischief and she's not gonna
damage herself for the house. Mm-hmm. .
So you're doing her kindness. Okay.
And a lot of the times it's hard for us to be the adults in the relationship,
but it's so important for her safety. Mm-hmm.
and for her well-being.
And especially since we wanna make sure that she learns the right rules. Yes.
We wanna make sure that she doesn't have the opportunity to make the wrong
choices when we can't actually supervise her. Right.
So the crate is fabulous and you're doing such a good thing for her by making
sure that you stick to the crate,
even if it feels like a bit of tough love sometimes. Yeah.
It does.
,
we are going to play some little games with Kelani and what we're going to do is
teach her that going into the crate is a really pleasant thing to do.
And I know you've already done a little bit of this, so that's great.
She'll have a leg up already. So all I am going to do,
I've got some really tempting treats here. I've got some little pieces of liver.
What's that? And all I'm gonna do is show her those cookies.
I'm gonna toss it into the crate. Toss it, there you go.
And then I'm gonna encourage her to go in. Now she's a little reluctant,
so I'm gonna try a little bit more just to see if we can help encourage her
here. What's that? There you go. That a girly. Oh.
But in the end, if she says, no, I'm not going to,
all I'm gonna do is just gently insist. So this is the time when I
need to just help her be right. Yay. Good for you.
And then when she gets in, she gets all those goodies. Okay.
So now she can clean up those goodies and I'm not gonna let her just go in and
then come back out again because I don't want her to dictate when she goes in
and when she comes out.
What I wanna do now is work on a little bit of manners coming out of the
crate. Okay.
So now what I'm gonna do is I am going to just open the crate a little bit.
I'm gonna get some of those treats ready again. Slowly. Oh,
if she tries to come out, I'm just gonna close it again. No big deal.
So just a nice soft closing. Yay. Good girly.
I'll give her another reward for not bursting out. Close it up again.
Let her eat that. Good for you. And this is working to our advantage,
cuz she's actually tired right now. Yeah. .
So it'll make it easier for us to work on these door manners. Yay.
Good for you. Nice quick reward. Happy tail wag you can hear.
And then close the door again.
It's really important to note that I would never leave my puppy in a crate
unsupervised, or even if I'm in the same room with a house line on.
The reason that I have this house line on now is because I wanna make sure that
I have control and I'm actually working in training with this puppy so it's safe
for me to be here and make sure that that house line is not gonna get chewed in
the crate or she's not gonna get tangled up in it.
And it's going to be really helpful for me if I do happen to open the door
and she bursts out,
I have a line to be able to stop her and she doesn't learn to play keep away. At
that point,
I would really like to do a few more in-and-out games just to help build her
confidence in running into the crate.
Now rehearsal and dog training counts for a ton of things.
So if she's had some experience with sort of struggling and not wanting to get
into the crate,
then that will keep us from making huge strides in huge progress right away.
And I always wanna remind people that you know,
you're not going from kindergarten to university right away,
so you need to build in steps and stages.
So we're gonna take little pieces of success here. We may not get there today,
we may not get there for a couple of days, but I really want to try,
we are going to work a little bit more on helping her get a nice positive
association with going into the crate. And we have a little secret weapon here.
I've got a Kong with some peanut butter that we have discovered.
She really likes the peanut butter. Whoa. You want that peanut butter?
It's good stuff. Hey, in order to get that peanut butter,
you're gonna have to go into the crate. What do you think about that?
It's in there. Oh, that a girly. Yay. Good for you.
Good girl.
And then I'm just gonna calmly close the door and she can have a few minutes
with that Kong. She can enjoy it.
And then when I know that I want to do another repetition, I can just reach in,
get that Kong and I can repeat things with that as well. So that was great.
We got some success.
A lot of times people are really stressed out about putting their dog in the
crate, leaving their dog in the crate. I know, Nancy,
this is a concern for you and I want to help alleviate some of that
stress. For you, and for anybody watching this video,
I wanna make sure that you come away with some tips that help you make this a
really positive experience for your puppies.
The first thing I wanna talk about is the location of the crate.
So a lot of the time we put it out in the open,
we feel like that's a better spot to nurture the pup,
but it's actually counterintuitive.
Our pups like to have a little bit of a den feeling.
They like to have something that's sort of enclosed. Mm-hmm. .
And as you get to know her better,
you're gonna start to see that when she seeks out spots to rest,
she usually will do it.
She will likely do it against a wall or against a couch or underneath something.
Mm-hmm. .
So we're going to try to set up that same scene for her in the crate so that she
feels comfortable and confident that nothing is gonna come from behind her.
There's this instinctual safety that comes with putting the crate in the right
space.
So what I'm gonna do here is I'm just gonna tuck it away between these chairs
and rather than leaving it,
this crate is great for having an opening on top because that's really,
really handy.
I love having that with young puppies because when I'm working on door manners,
if I need to get them out quickly, oh that's fun to chew.
If I need to get them out quickly,
I can open the top of the crate and I can just lift them out.
And then I'm not contradicting the manners that I'm trying to teach with the
front door there. Hmm. Okay. So it's a nice option to have. I really like that.
But because it's wide open, it sort of works against that denning feel.
So I'm gonna take just a towel. Mm-hmm. ,
and I'm gonna cover that there.
And then I've got another towel here because I'm actually going to play around
and see what Keilani is more comfortable with.
Whether she's more comfortable with the front covered as well and this entire
thing being done like,
or whether she's more comfortable with just having the top covered and having a
viewpoint out the front. Now I have got, um,
a Kong with a little bit of peanut butter here that she's already been working
on and she seems to be really interested in .
So in the situations where I want her to go into her crate when I'm
cooking dinner or I'm busy vacuuming my house or something of that nature,
I'm gonna give her something to occupy herself,
which might be that Kong with peanut butter in it. If I want her to just go into
the crate and go to sleep,
I might give her something a little bit less interesting that she's less likely
to work on putting her in there right now with that Kong is a great opportunity
for us to now have a conversation. She's got something to occupy herself.
She might not go right to sleep because there's action out here,
but she has something to think about other than the fact that she's stuck in the
crate and she wants to get out. Yeah.
So this is a great opportunity for us to go and cook dinner or go and have a
shower or you know,
do one of the immeasurable tasks that we have in our day so that we can
still keep our puppy safe, but get life done at the same time.
She is actually settling really,
really nicely in here. If she was still fussy a little bit and if she was still,
you know, looking at all the action going on out here,
what we might try is taking a towel and covering the front of that crate as
well. Again,
that'll make it nice and d like it also gives a little bit of separation.
One of the problems that you said that you were having was that if she knows
you're in the house but she can't necessarily see you,
she starts to panic a little bit. Yeah. So if you work through that,
by helping her sort of skew the line between when you're there, when you're not,
by covering with the towels so she can't have a visual on you.
And then in addition, putting on some sort of background noise.
And we have actually been having amazing success with the McCann Dogs music
channel and ha having that music help to calm our dogs. Mm-hmm. .
So put that on in the background so that she can't necessarily pinpoint whether
you're in the room or whether you're outside of the room.
And that'll help her sort of blur those lines and learn to be confidently
independent in the crate because that is one of the really big benefits that
comes along with early crate training.
So how do you feel about getting her into the crate to begin with when you
physically have to put her in, I feel mean. Okay. Yeah.
And do you find that she struggles with you? Mm-hmm. . Okay.
Mm-hmm. . All righty.
So we did a couple of exercises earlier and you were struggling to get her into
the crate and she was sort of fighting back against you. Mm-hmm.
and I stepped in to give you a hand and it went very smoothly when
I did that. Yeah.
And I wanted to point out for you that the difference with that was just
confidence. Okay.
It was just me knowing that I need to put this puppy in the crate and just sort
of physically lifting her in enough and making it happen. Yeah.
With that reward on the inside as well.
So that she then had something to preoccupy her time and without her thinking
that she has an option to sort of fight against you and back away. Mm-hmm.
, it's a much smoother situation.
So just a little bit more confidence knowing again that you,
you can ditch the guilt and knowing that you are doing her a solid by making
sure that she is crate trained well enough that she can build that confident
independence and she can be safe and sound.
A very common mistake that people make that actually causes the puppy a lot of
stress is they make a big deal out of their comings and goings.
So when you leave the house,
you've met her needs. You know that she is ready to have a little nap.
She's doing a little fussing right now,
but that's because we've changed her location a little bit and she's, you know,
trying to get the lay of the land and see what's going on.
But we've left her in there for about five minutes so far because I don't want
to make a big deal outta my puppy, shove her in the crate,
and then run out the front door. Mm-hmm. .
I also wanna make sure that when I get home,
I don't make a big deal outta my puppy right away.
So when I have a really young puppy,
she probably will be bursting by the time I get home and she'll need to go to
the bathroom and I have to,
I have to take that into account so when she's young enough that she's still
gonna be bursting,
I am gonna go to her right away after getting home and I'm going to very calmly
take her out, sort of like you would in the middle of the night. Yes.
So that you're not encouraging this excitement and interaction and engagement
when you take her out. I'm gonna take her out with the leash, put the leash on,
take her straight out, let her pee,
and then I might even bring her back in and tuck her in the crate for five
minutes. Mm.
And then I might wander around and make a coffee or put away my groceries or go
to the bathroom myself, you know,
do all the things that I need to do and then I'll take care of her once I'm
ready. And the fact that I haven't made a big deal and you know,
done all the cooing, oh, I'm so sorry sweetie. I don't wanna leave you alone,
but I need to go out.
That stuff's gonna cause her a lot of stress because it's really going to
identify the fact that something big is happening because I sound really
worried. And then when I get home, once she's a little bit older,
in a perfect world, I always make sure that I do something for myself first.
And that just helps her realize that my comings and goings are nothing to focus
on. They're not a big deal and it's something small.
Usually I might go to the bathroom myself or I might put on a pot of coffee.
Yeah. Just something that she hears me in the house and knows that I'm there,
but I'm not necessarily rushing right to her and reinforcing that, you know,
she might be stressed out that I was gone for that period of time and then I've
appeared.
So now she starts to associate me coming in the house with this stressful event
as well. And that can lead down the road to separation related stress.
So I don't wanna do that.
This would not be a video about crate training if we did not talk about noise.
And what gets reinforced with the puppy and puppies are always looking
for the win.
They're always looking to figure out what tactic will work best for her,
for them. So in this situation,
if she tries things like whimpering or whining and we focus on
her based on that, that's very rewarding.
A lot of times people think of rewards in terms of like food and toys,
but they don't think about other things that have natural reward value.
And she is a very, uh, friendly puppy. She likes attention.
So if her making noise gets her attention, she's gonna figure out very quickly,
ah, I make noise and you focus on me. Or even worse,
I make noise and you come and open the crate door and let me out.
So we always wanna make sure we're very aware of what it is that we are
reinforcing. Mm-hmm.
. And it's always gotta be something that aligns with our view of a
good puppy behavior. So now she's nice and quiet.
I think she's gone to sleep because we worked her pretty hard today and she's
tired. But in any situation,
if she is quiet and calm and content in the crate,
if you wanna let her out at that point,
that's a great opportunity to open the open the crate door, have a reminder,
manners, of course, coming out of the crate with those, um,
with those front door games.
But working on having her understand that she only gets out of the crate when
she's quiet and when she's content is gonna go a long way to helping her
understand what tactics work for her in that situation. And then of course,
you'll be able to align your tactics because we like the quiet the calm.
Yeah. Like what if, what if she is like consistently just won't stop?
Often something like a little interruption technique where you might make a
noise and then you get a moment to quiet where you can calmly praise the puppy
and let her know that that's exactly what you're looking for.
Or in a situation where you absolutely want to get her out,
to get her out to the bathroom, for example, you might wait behind the crate,
make a clapping noise, or you might make a little tap on top of the noise or,
or on top of the crate so that she has a moment of pause to say, oh,
what was that noise? And then you have an opportunity to say, oh,
what a good puppy.
You can then let her out nice and quickly based on the idea that she's been
quiet for those few seconds,
we have a great video that talks about how to address noise in the crate. If
you're having some struggles with noise in the crate and you need some help with
that, click this card.
My ideal scenario at the end of every training session is to end on a win,
because that builds my confidence moving forward.
It builds my puppies understanding of the skill moving forward.
Puppies will commit to long-term memory through rest just like we do as humans.
So it's really good to leave her on a high note and let her get some rest,
and then come and revisit this a little bit later down the line.
And I might have to take a step back with the things that I've done with my next
training session just to remind her that there's lots of value to be had in the
crate.
But eventually what I wanna do is get to the point where I am expecting her to
go into the crate first and then the rewards come afterwards for that success.
We had a great win today with early crate training with this young puppy.
There are five wins that you need to get with your puppy every single morning.
To find out what those are, click this video right here. And on that note,
I'm Instructor Shannon. And.
I'm Nancy. And this is Keilani. Happy.
Training.