Method
A couple of goals to keep in mind is that your puppy is going to be in a crate for a fair bit of time for a fair portion of their life. Sometimes we rush moving the crate from our lives. We want them to have freedom. Unfortunately, that tends to happen about the same time as their adolescence phase. We see a degradation in things like house breaking and destructive behaviors. I would prefer the time frame goal to be post adolescence. That way the puppy is not practicing bad behaviors while you're not home. You have time to work out things like counter surfing and getting into the garbage. Sock stealing and table leg chewing.
Because they are going to spend a fair deal of their time in the crate, we want to make it as happy as possible. In order to make it a happy and stress-free zone, we need to build that emotional response. That work starts outside of the crate.
For a puppy, entering something that is unknown, has a different texture under foot, may smell like a past dog if you've purchased it second hand. There are things that the puppy recognizes that we have to simply believe are there. The first step to any of this is building fun on the bed.
We are going to be using treats for this. Treats are the easiest communicator and elicit the most joyful responses from our dogs. In my own world, I certainly phase down the number and value of treats that I give my dogs once they know a behavior. I never completely stopped them though. I want to keep their joy high, I want to keep their responses intact, and I don't want to have to retrain a behavior. It seems very easy and very lazy to toss them an occasional treat before they go to bed. After they pee outside. I have adult dogs and I still take the time to say “good job” when I see them pee or poop outside because five years later I still want them to pee or poop outside.
Let's talk about treats for a moment. Not all treats are created equally. There are high value treats, there are mid value treats and there are low value treats. I use all of them. We start with a high value treat like chicken, cheese, hot dogs, peanut butter. Things that they wouldn't get on a regular basis. We use high value treats when we are training a new behavior. The dogs can compare and contrast treat options and make choices more closely related to the behavior we are shaping. For example, if inside the crate has chicken and outside the crate has kibble we can silently encourage them to make the decision that we want, which is entering the crate. I consider kibble a low value treat.
Kibble is one of the unsung heroes of the Treat world. If we agree that a cup of kibble has 300 to 500 pieces. Then maybe we should also agree that there are then 300 to 500 chances to reward our dogs and tell them what they're doing is what we want them to do. You are going to feed them breakfast anyway. Why not feed half in their bowl or a toy and the other half is reward based or reinforcement based? The dog is laying down. Great. Here's some food. The dog didn't bark at that leaf that just blew by. Great. Here's some food. It's a great thing to use in a car. There's a cow. Here's a kibble. There's a car that we're meeting. Here's a kibble. Motorbike? New smell, sound or bump? Yayyyy Puppy, here's a kibble.
So if we use high value treat to get their interest and low value treats to maintain that same behavior, I feel like we're winning the treat game.
Begin at the beginning, with high value treats. We're just going to sprinkle five or six around the crate, no more than two feet away from the door. I would prefer for the concentration to be near the front of the crate where the dog is going to be entering. Again, I'm going to repeat, we are building the behavior, and the behavior we want is the dog coming to the front of the crate, not playing ring around the rosies or trying to figure out how to get in from the backside. We really want the Pups set up to win this game. Dogs don't know the difference between an obedience command like SIT. And a trick like shake hands. They are all just repetitive behaviors that they have learned illicit a reinforcement. The crate is going to be treated the same way. And just as we don't ask the dog to shake hands while sitting pretty. We are going to breakdown the crate.
Once the puppy. Is easily eating the high value treats that are around the front of the door and I would reset and repeat this 5 to 10 times. So 5 high value rewards placed down in front of the crate. Let the pup look at you and. Let the pup, look at you and say I'm done and then toss another 5. Repeat that until the pup is absolutely beyond comfortable and happy being in front of that crate door. The goal before we move on to the next step is to have an 80% compliance. Toss a low value away from the crate and drop high value in front of it. The goal is eight out of 10 times the puppy is happy and joyfully responding to the step that we're on. If the puppy is not, simply continue at this level and don't move to the next step. We are building foundation work and you can't build a house on a crappy basement. Take your time with this and allow the puppy to do this at his or her pace. This is not something that we can put on our agendas. This is not something that we can say Wednesday at noon. That will be done and we'll be on to the next thing. Some steps are going to go quick and some steps may make the dog hesitate and need it to be maybe broken down. So for example, if the pup is having a hard time being in front of the crate with you sitting on the floor next to it. Then maybe we just toss the treats a little further away and build the confidence. Three feet away, 4 feet away, 5 feet away. Whatever it takes for the pup to be happy. And then we can slowly shrink that back up again.
Is your puppy easily taking the treats? Is the puppies body language loose and happy? Is the puppy orienting back towards you and the crate, or is it moving away from the crate as soon as the food is gone? If your pup is comfortable then we can move on to the next step. If not. Please try again. After a few hours, it's important to give them a few hours break and possibly a nap. They may also need to go potty. So check on that.
Thinking is exhausting for a dog. Let them think this through. You know what the expectation is. Allow the pup to work that out. Without coaching, without words. Words just interupt their concentration and make it frustrating.
Everyone has earned a rest. Thank you for your commitment to keeping things positive in your pups world. Next step is having the pup Enter the Crate