Choosing a Crate

Buying a crate for your dog is easy as long as you follow a couple of simple rules. I recommend the wire & metal crates as they are sturdier and discourage your dog from chewing the sides like they can with a plastic crate. During training, your dog or puppy will need just enough room to stand up, turn around, and lie down. Any more room than that, and you might have to clean up an accident if you’re still housebreaking your puppy. Buy a crate that is the size of your dog as an adult. Many crates today come with a divider so you can make it larger as your puppy grows. When your dog is housebroken, you can make the divider larger or remove it completely to give your dog the full space. For more tips, check out my article: How to Buy a Dog Crate.

Introducing the Crate

Once you have purchased the crate, brought it home and assembled it, now it’s time to introduce the crate to your puppy. This first introduction to the crate needs to be a happy, positive experience. Use “high value” treats like hot dogs diced into tiny pieces, or maybe break up a few pieces of bacon into small bite-sized pieces. Use a happy tone of voice and make sure the crate door is left open. Call your puppy or dog to you and give him a treat. If he likes balls or toys more than treats, bring along a ball and play with him in front of the crate. He will probably approach the crate out of curiosity and sniff it voluntarily. If he does, use a happy tone and praise your dog and give him a treat. If he doesn’t, don’t push it, playing around the crate and giving him treats when he’s with you next to the crate works fine as well. Ofen, the slower you go when dog training, the better you’ll progress.

Keep it Short!

Keep the sessions short — under five minutes a “treat session” and repeat several times throughout the day. Continue to leave the door to the crate open. If your puppy willingly goes into the crate, praise him and give him a “jackpot” of a handful of treats in a row. All you are doing is encouraging your puppy to explore the inside of the crate and then come back out. For the first two or three days, this works well as it gives your puppy a sense of reassurance that something good will happen when he’s in the crate.

Feeding Puppy in the Crate

On the third day, put your puppy’s bowl in the crate and serve a meal from the crate, again leaving the door open. For the next meal, your puppy should be quite used to going in and out of the crate, so wait until he’s engaged in his meal and close and latch the crate door quietly. If your puppy finishes and waits calmly, you can open the door and let him out, praising him for his great behavior! If your puppy barks or protests, wait a few minutes until the moment that he calms down. When he’s calm, open the door and praise him. The idea is to only let your dog out when he’s calm and quiet. He will begin to associate that being calm will get him out of the crate.

Naptime in the Den

To your dog, a crate will become his own “den”. Before the week is up, you might notice your dog choosing to go into the crate and lie down to rest, especially if you put some toys around the inside of the crate so it begins to smell like him. If your dog is well housebroken, you can put a blanket or pillow inside the crate, but I only suggest that for well-housebroken adult dogs that are already crate trained. Never put bedding in a crate for a puppy still being house trained. Dogs will naturally avoid soiling their den, but if you have a blanket or pillow that might soak up the mess, you could encourage a hard-to-break habit. This is a good time to begin putting your dog in the crate by saying “Go Kennel” or “Spot” (anything you want is fine as long as you always use the same word). When the dog goes to his crate, close the door and leave for a very short period, maybe five minutes. Come back when you hear that your dog has calmed down, and praise him for being a great dog! Let him out of the crate if he’s being quiet.

But Where Do I Put the Crate?

This is entirely up to you, but I have always kept the dog crate in the bedroom. This allows me to hear if the puppy is stirring in the middle of the night so I can take him out of the crate to go outside to potty. This really speeds up the house training, as your puppy will stir and maybe whine in his crate if he has to go to the bathroom. The other reason I keep the crate in the bedroom is because dogs are pack animals. They want to be where you are! When a dog sleeps in the same room as you, he feels like he’s part of your pack. At first it’s a bit to get used to, and like a newborn baby, a young puppy may wake you up several times in a night to go outside to potty. Stick with it, straight out to potty and back to the crate with no playtime and he’ll get used to the idea that nighttime outings are only for potty and then back to bed.

How Long Can  I Crate My Puppy?

A general rule of thumb once your dog is crate trained is to add one hour to how many months old your pup is. For example, if your pup is five months old, he should be able to remain in the crate for up to six hours. Remember though, younger puppies (under five or six months old) really do need a break in the middle of the day to get out and potty and maybe play for a few minutes before being crated again. I personally wouldn’t crate a puppy under six months old for longer than four hours at a time. Adult dogs can work up to being crated for an entire day, and many apartment dogs are crated all day while their owners are at work. I have never been comfortable crating this long without having someone come by at lunch to let the dog out to play, potty, and stretch. I have a personal limit for my adult dogs of six hours in a crate before taking a walk, potty break, and a little playtime. During the day, my adult German Shepherd has free run of the house with a dog door to go outside. This is only because he’s well-trained and trustworthy (most of the time). If I were training a new puppy, he would have access through the dog door into only a limited area like the dining room, and have a crate or dog bed in the dining room for the puppy to rest during the day.

Seven Days to Success!

Your dog or puppy can be pretty well crate trained within seven days, provided you take it at a slow pace and use lots of encouragement, treats, and praise. Of course, if he’s a young puppy, he won’t be potty trained perfectly yet, but the crate definitely helps aid in potty training by using the dog’s natural instinct to not soil his den. Our five year old German Shepherd has a large 48″ wire crate in our bedroom, and because he’s reliably house trained with a dog door to go outside, we leave the crate door open at night so he can come and go as he likes. We also put a thick blanket in the crate and drape another blanket over the top and three sides of the crate to help him feel more secure in his cave. Trustworthy in the house, we still occasionally crate him when we go to dinner or a movie for a few hours just to keep up the habit of crate training.

If you have any questions or want to know more about crate training, please feel free to email me at shari@greatk9.com or post a comment below and I would be glad to respond. Happy crate training!