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Your dog’s crate is their personal den, a place to relax, sleep, and feel safe. Crate training has many benefits, such as helping to establish a routine for your dog and regulate their potty training schedule. It’s also an important tool for teaching your dog to be alone. But how do you safely and effectively use a crate without making your dog feel like you’re punishing them?
Whether you have a new puppy or an adult dog, with the right approach, you can train them to feel comfortable in their crate. Making sure you choose the right crate size for your dog is also an important part of successful crate training. These 10 tips will help make crate training your dog a positive and successful experience. Soon, your dog will look forward to spending time in a private space that’s entirely theirs.
Encourage Your Dog to Explore Their Crate
When you first expose your dog to a crate, they might be anxious and not want to go inside. Try to avoid forcing your dog into the crate, since that can create a negative association. If your dog is afraid of going inside an enclosed space, pushing them to go in will only make them more nervous. This might make your dog have negative feelings or fears about the crate, which are harder to unlearn.
Instead, encourage your dog to enter and explore on their own. A perfect way to do that is to lay a trail of dog food or training treats that leads to the crate. Hold the crate door open, so it doesn’t accidentally close on your dog. These early associations will greatly impact how your dog sees the crate — first impressions matter!
If your dog is hesitant, encourage them to go a bit farther each time you lay the trail until they feel confident enough to go inside. Patience is key: your dog is trying to understand something new. Make sure to wait to close the door behind them when they’re voluntarily going in and out on their own. If you close the door too early, they may also react negatively and feel trapped in this new space.
Create Positive Associations With the Crate
Your dog’s crate is an effective tool for keeping them out of trouble, but you don’t want them to feel like they’re being put in a time-out either. Make it a priority to create a positive association every time you use the crate, so your dog only has positive feelings when they’re going in it. This can mean offering a favorite dog treat for entering, keeping a bully stick or other high-value chew inside, or giving your dog lots of praise.
These incentives and positivity towards the crate will help your dog see the crate as a place they want to be. Instead of punishment, you want to establish crate time to let them calm down. If they see it as a place where they feel safe and can relax, it’ll be a more effective tool in preventing unwanted dog behavior.
Reward Calm Behavior in the Crate
Once your dog is happily spending time inside their crate, it’s important not to take that for granted. Dogs repeat behaviors that are rewarded, and calm, quiet relaxation is exactly what you want. If you reinforce that this is what you want your dog to be doing, they’ll keep doing it. Soon, they’ll understand that calm behavior makes you happy and is something that’s rewarded.
Make your expectations clear by rewarding your dog when they behave calmly in the crate, or willingly go to the crate on their own to rest or relax. These rewards could be anything from gentle praise to a dog biscuit. Try to reward your dog in a way that keeps them relaxed, since you want to avoid riling them up again after they’ve gone to their calm place on their own.
Keep Rewards Near the Crate
To reinforce crate training and proper behavior in the crate, you’ll want to provide a reward in the moment. If your dog associates going in the crate with getting rewards, they’re more likely to make the connection that this is what you want them to do. If you need five minutes to dig out treats from your kitchen cupboard, your dog may have become bored by then and try other behaviors, like barking or pawing at the crate door, to get your attention.
Rewarding your dog promptly to build that positive association with their crate means you’ll want to keep those rewards close by. Keep a sealed container of kibble, small dog treats, or some crate-only chew toys near the crate so you can reinforce good behavior right after it happens.
Practice Positive Dog Crate Cues
It’s helpful to teach your dog to enter their crate on cue, especially if you’re traveling with your dog or faced with an emergency evacuation. Even in everyday situations where you need to answer the door or need your dog to stay calmly in another room, teaching the cue “crate” or “kennel up” lets your dog know when you want them to go inside. If you practice using verbal cues before your dog enters the crate, then reward them once they’re inside. Soon, they’ll associate the cue with the action, and you can begin to ask for the behavior.
Try to give crate-related cues to your dog in a happy or neutral tone of voice. You want your dog to be excited about entering, not worried that something bad is about to happen or that they’re in trouble. This way, you’ll be able to maintain positive associations with the crate. Even in a stressful situation where you need your dog to go into their crate, try to give the cue neutrally. Your dog will sense your stress in your voice, and if you consistently tell your dog to go to their crate in a stressed tone, they’ll also associate stress with their crate.
Feed Your Dog Inside Their Crate
Another way to encourage your dog to explore their crate is to feed them their regular meals inside it. You can do this by putting their food bowl in the back of the crate. This will help build a positive association between the crate and food in your dog’s mind.
Most dogs look forward to eating, so if their crate also becomes the place where they have their regular meals, they’ll look forward to being in their crate at meal times. If your dog is reluctant to enter the crate, even to eat, you can start with placing the food dish in front of the door. Then, with each meal, slowly move the bowl farther and farther inside. Be patient with your dog — they may need more time to get used to eating in the crate. You may need to keep the bowl in certain spots first before moving it further into the crate.
Provide Dog Toys in the Crate
It’s important to give your dog something to do in their crate, particularly when you’re still teaching them to settle down and relax. Enjoying a food-stuffed dog toy is a perfect in-crate activity. (You can combine in-crate mealtimes with this toy activity by stuffing your dog’s regular kibble or canned food into a toy. Soaking kibble with some no-salt broth can help it stay put, or you can freeze the toy to give your dog more challenge.) Your dog can interact with the toy while receiving delicious rewards. This builds even more positive associations, teaches your dog appropriate chewing behavior, and gives them something to do.
For example, your dog might enjoy gnawing on a chew toy filled with a spreadable, dog-safe peanut butter snack. They might also have fun playing with interactive dog toys. You can hide small, crunchy treats in a treat dispenser or puzzle toy, then watch your dog have fun while trying to find the snacks. (Puzzle toys sometimes have smaller parts, so be sure to supervise your dog while they enjoy puzzle playtime in their crate.)
Be sure you’re choosing the right chew toys for your dog, especially if they’ll be in their crates unsupervised. They should be large enough that your dog can’t swallow them whole, and tough enough (or soft enough) for your dog’s chewing style. A power chewer, for example, can tear through plush toys in minutes, and torn-up pieces can be a choking hazard. Any time you provide your dog with a new style of toy, supervise them as they play to be sure it’s a safe choice for them.
Using Multiple Crates in Your Home
It can be helpful to provide your dog with different crates for different purposes, rather than expecting one crate in one location to meet all your needs. For example, your dog should have a crate in a quiet part of your home for resting and sleeping, especially if you want them to sleep in a crate overnight. You might opt to keep this sleeping crate in or near your bedroom. When you’re potty training, consider putting another crate near a door that goes outside. You could opt to put a crate in the dining room if you don’t want your dog to feel lonely while you eat.
Start with one crate. Once your dog is comfortable and sees the crate as a safe space to hang out, they’ll be more open to other crates in different areas. They’ll learn to see these crates as places of relaxation and will feel comfortable having their own space in different rooms of the house.
This training will also carry over when your visits dog daycare or friends’ homes, goes on overnight vacations with you, or in any number of other scenarios where access to a crate can help them feel comfortable and safe.
Avoid Crating Your Dog With Force or Anger
If you catch your dog destroying your house or jumping on visitors, it’s tempting to get frustrated and banish them to their crate. While there’s nothing wrong with giving your dog time and space, it’s important to do so calmly and gently. Especially if you often use this tone to send your dog to their crate, they’ll associate it with a place of punishment. Over time, they won’t be calm when they’re in their crate,. Instead, they’ll be nervous that they’ve done something wrong and upset you.
After all, you don’t want to ruin all the positive associations you worked so hard to create. If your dog links the crate with your anger, they’ll stop seeing it as a safe area. As a result, you’ll have trouble getting them inside next time. It’s the opposite of what you want when crate training your dog.
Let Your Dog Out Once They’re Calm
Remember that dogs repeat behaviors that are rewarded. If your dog wants out of their crate and you open the door, whatever they were doing at that moment will suggest to them that the behavior was the key to release. If that was barking or whining, they’ll exhibit the same behavior next time they want out. You want them to connect calm behavior with release, so that they continue to model calm behavior in their crate.
You don’t want to undo all the hard work you put into building calm crate behavior. Instead, before opening the door, ask for calm behavior, such as having your dog sit or lie down. Slowly delay opening the door for longer and longer periods of time until your dog will patiently wait for you to open it.
If you’re working on potty training, watch the clock or look for signals your puppy needs to relieve themselves before they begin whining because they feel the urge to go for a potty break. Help them be successful by taking them out before they need to let you know they urgently need to go.
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