Welcome back to McCann Dogs. I'm Kayl McCann. In today's video,
we are gonna talk all about how to stop barking or whining in the crate.
And I'm gonna give you some tactics that you can start working on right away.
So before we talk about how to fix the barking in the crate,
we also wanna talk about why dogs bark in the crate,
because there's actually a lot of reasons why they bark in the crate.
Some of them are very valid and some of them are just plain annoying.
Lots of dogs will bark in their crate because they're bored because they're
not so happy that they can't just go and do whatever they want to in the house.
Sometimes there's valid things like they actually have to go to the bathroom or,
you know, they need something. For some reason.
Before I start to address the actual noise in the crate,
I do need to make sure that she doesn't actually need something. So before I
work through this, I'm gonna make sure that she's had breakfast,
which she's had.
She's had access to water a little bit and I'm out here making sure that she
doesn't have to have a pee or a poo.
That way when I actually do put her in the crate and she makes noise,
I can feel confident about addressing it because she's not actually requiring
something. So this is Nico. She's a, Whippet puppy.
And we've borrowed her for today's barking in the crate video,
because we've heard she does a lot of barking in the crate.
We've also experienced a little bit of barking in the crate and first things
first is I've already noticed from getting her in,
into the crate that she doesn't really like going in her crate.
So I'm a little bit prepared for that.
I have a little piece of food here and I'm gonna coax her in,
but I'm not really gonna give her a choice because I want her to understand
she's gotta go in. Here we go. In you go, yes, good girl.
but I'm gonna make it happen. I can reward her for that. Now,
one thing that we sort of noticed with her is that she is
fairly quiet if we're around. But if we start to, you know,
have a conversation off to the side or especially if we leave the room,
then she starts to go a little bit nuts. Now she's settled, which is great.
but my life is not going to revolve around, hovering over my dog in the crate.
I need to go and do normal human things while she started chill's out in the
crate. So I have some food here. I'm just gonna sort of set it off at the side.
And when you're training this, you kind of just need to look a little bit busy.
Maybe you have your crate in your living room. Like we do maybe you have it in
the kitchen, but just sort of do stuff, but keep your eye on the dog.
So if I start moving around and she's doing what she needs to do,
I'm gonna take an opportunity to praise her. Good girl. Good, quiet.
Oh, you like that? Good girl. Good.
And then I could come over and drop a little cookie in her crate. If I want it.
You could just use praise as well without any feeding,
if you'd like to good girl, good, quiet.
and I'm just gonna reinforce her for being chill. As I'm busy.
It's really important to remember that when you're doing this,
that you actually are focused on what the dog's doing.
So this is not a good thing to practice. If you need to be multitasking,
if you actually need to be helping your kids with something or somebody's
actually gonna come to the door or a real--life situation happens,
I wouldn't recommend training this during that moment. You need to be really
aware so that you can keep your eye on the dog.
I specifically came back and I chose to reward Nico.
When I felt that she was really, truly calm and settled. So I'm, you know,
sure that I'm reinforcing the right things.
So if you have a dog that barks in the crate,
I'm gonna give you a potentially game-changing tip.
And that is the location of your crate.
So when it comes time to have to do normal people,
things like make dinner and you go, yes, good girl. And you know,
your crate maybe is located in the living room or somewhere that's away from
where you're gonna be spending your time to, you know, make your meals.
you're now putting your dog in a situation where they could rehearse doing a lot
of obnoxious barking. And when we're in the training phase,
we don't really want them to have a lot of that rehearsal. Now, again,
we've learned with this dog and she's like very like many of your dogs,
she's better when she's around us when she's with us.
So now that I have to make dinner,
I've made the decision to move the crate to the kitchen so that I can keep my
eye on her. I can come back and reward her.
I can address the barking if I need to, but I feel pretty confident.
She'll be fairly settled.
Now I will get to the point where I need to practice teaching her that I cannot
be with you 24 7, when you're in your crate,
I need to go and do different things. But when you're working through it,
try your best to set your dog up, to make good choices.
And if that means moving crate to a couple different locations in the house to
make that easier for you,
that's going to help you sort of transition to this a little bit more smoothly.
We always wanna look for training opportunities and I am seeing one right now.
She is laying comfortably and calmly and quietly in her crate.
So I'm gonna take an opportunity to just practice,
actually removing myself from the room and taking an opportunity to reward her.
If she's still settled as I leave now, I can sneak up the door and listen,
but I'm just gonna start off by, you know, going up the door for just a moment.
And then I'm gonna come back on reward. Now I'm gonna emphasize the,
just the moment part,
because we're not leaving for 10 minutes and hoping that it works.
We're literally just going out of sight for a moment to see what they do.
Hey, Hey, quiet. So even if I'm not in the room,
I verbaled right away. So I verbaled even when she couldn't see me,
cause I wanna pinpoint within one second of her making noise.
So that's why the verbal happened immediately.
Then I can come in from there you be quiet. That's enough. Quiet.
Good girl. Good, quiet. Good.
Let's talk a little bit about the dog training side of things.
When it comes to good timing and delivering our information when our dogs are
making noise in the crate. So we basically have a,
a couple steps that we're trying to do.
Number one is we need to make sure that we are using our voice to pinpoint when
the dog is making noise within one second of the noise happening. And again,
don't wait till it escalates. So the dog going crazy in the crate,
start off with just a little bit of noise to begin with.
I'm gonna pinpoint that with, you know,
a word like quiet or Hey or something like that.
That's enough quiet.
Sometimes the dogs will just respond to that, that,
that break in your voice or that interruption interaction with them will cause
'em to be quiet.
That gives you that split little second to praise them calmly and
positively for that quiet behavior. Yes.
Good, quiet.
Good girl. A lot of dogs though,
will just bark right through or make noise through that, that verbal reprimand,
because they don't really know what it means quite yet.
So the second step is to then follow that verbal with some type of
interruption for some dogs just gently tapping the crate will be all that you
need to stop the noise for a moment. Hey, Hey, Hey, stop. You're fine.
While other dogs may need that leash on the crate to, you know,
make a more significant startling noise. Again,
we're not trying to scare or upset the dogs by doing this.
We're simply trying to distract them or interrupt them by making that noise so
that we have a few moments. Sometimes it's truly a few moments,
a few seconds for us to have an opportunity to then say.
Good girl, good, quiet.
Yes. And start praising the good. And then from there we can build on it.
I'm gonna share with you guys a pro training tip now.
Because there are lots of dogs that are wonderful when you're in the room and
then when you leave, they make noise. The second you walk into, you know,
address the barking, they, they stop right away because they're like, yay.
You walked in the room, I'm excited to see you.
And you don't really get an opportunity to address the noise with really good
timing.
Another thing you can do is use a long line that you attach to your dog's crate.
now I have a, don't have a long line on me today,
but I have two leashes that I've put together,
which might be a helpful thing for you to know.
So basically I would just clip the leash to the front of the dog's crate. And I
would go around the room to the other side, maybe leave the room.
I could maybe if it was, I was sitting on a couch and I was at a distance,
you could do exactly the same thing.
It doesn't need to be specifically to leave leaving the room.
But basically I'm gonna leave and go in the other room and see what happens.
And if she makes noise, I can actually do my correction or my interruption from,
you know, outside the room,
which means the only time that she sees me is when she's actually being quiet.
So I can be reinforcing the right things. So I'm gonna sneak out.
See what happens here. Quiet.
Yes.
Good. Quiet. What a good girl.
Now I don't wanna keep correcting her.
So I'm going to just leave for a second and then I'm gonna come in before she
has a chance to make noise.
So I'm just gonna wait until she's a bit settled there. Good girl. Quiet.
Good. Good.
Girl. Good. Quiet. That's nice.
Good girl.
No noise.
Yes. Good girl. Well done.
Timing is everything. I need to use a firmer voice when she's making noise.
As soon as I see the settled and the calm behavior,
I can use more of a soothing and calming voice from there.
Don't keep rehearsing failure for the dog.
It might mean that you need to start off with being, you know,
in your dog's view for a little bit longer and then slowly building the out of
sight stuff.
But your dog's really gonna let you know what they're comfortable with based on
how they react to it. Good girl. Very good.
So now that I've had some quiet behavior, I can start reinforcing this.
And again,
I'm just gonna build on the timeframe very slowly as she's more comfortable,
I can spend a little bit more time out of sight,
making sure that when I come back,
it is when she's calm and settled. Now another great place to use the technique
of the leashes is at nighttime.
If your dog's making any noise in the crate while you're sleeping,
rather than getting up outta bed a hundred million times a night,
you get attached your long line to the crate and do the same technique.
So for Nico's owners and for you at home,
you may consider what type of crate that your dog is in.
Dogs are very much denning animals. We're using a wire crate today,
which Nico seems to be fine with,
but there are some dogs that prefer using a plastic style crate over a wire
crate, just because it feels a little bit more den-like.
another trick that you can use is to actually cover the crate with a big blanket
or a sheet,
which sort of blocks out all of the noise and the distractions and the
excitement sort of the same way that you would cover a bird's cage. if you have
a wire crate,
I might suggest putting something along the top that extends a little bit
further out so that the dog can't pull the blanket through the crate wires.
if it's a plastic crate, obviously that's a bit easier.
An additional bandaid that you can use for a short-term solution is put
something in the crate for the dog to do so that they don't bark you know,
fill with, you know,
tasty treats or put your dog's favorite toy or chew bone in there.
something that's obviously safe to leave for them,
but that's a great way to kind of occupy them.
So they know when they go in their crate, they're gonna get a tasty reward.
They're gonna get something fun to do.
And that helps keep them quiet and occupied.
Nico's owners dropped her off this morning for us. And in terms of
the actual training time,
I've really only been working with her for a little bit less than an hour.
And you could see from the start of the video,
how much barking she was doing in her crate to now she's lying very calm and
settled, but you know, the training really isn't done.
I haven't fixed the problem completely,
but it's really promising to see how much improvement she made in such a short
period of time.
One thing that I noticed about Nico from working with her today is that she
really doesn't have a lot of value for going in her crate or being in her crate.
So one of the tips that I would send home with her parents today is to take some
time, to build more value in the crate, by playing a few fun little games.
And if this is something that you're struggling with your dog at home as well,
I would definitely suggest that you check out this video right here.
It's gonna give you tons of tips and tricks to teach your dog to love their
crate. If this is your first time here, make sure you hit that subscribe button.
We post brand new videos every single week to help you have a well-behaved
four-legged family member. So on that note, I'm Kayl. This is Nico.
Happy Training.