Crate training and barking
Top Tips
- cover the crate with blankets
- leave your scent in the crate e.g. old jumpers
- provide teddies
- try a fence
- feed puppy in the crate
- don't leave her to cry in the crate
- don't associate hard punishment with the crate
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I remember before we got Molly thinking and talking with Tom about crates. Back then I compared them to doggy prison and wasn’t keen on the idea of using one. We both thought we would give her a dog bed and she would sleep in it easily. Well after the first few days we were in desperate need of some help and google was very clear we needed a crate.
We bought a slightly larger crate from Pets at Home than advice suggested, I really did not want Molly feeling too enclosed in it. We padded out the crate with blankets and big teddies from Ikea. The teddies acted as pillows and comforters for her.
I think our reluctance to crate training reinforced her behaviours of not accepting the crate to start with. We both had to really think about what we wanted the crate for and our personal values around enclosing her in it. Once we had both our intentions and behaviours in line, Molly started to like the crate. We fed her in it and left her water in the crate too. She was never a fan of being shut inside of it but after a while happily went into it and stuck her head out so that the door couldn’t be shut.
Zak George off YouTube suggested using a fence around the crate. We quickly bought one off Amazon and attached it to the crate so it offered a play pen around the crate and meant the crate door didn’t need to be shut. Molly accepted this creative alternative. Molly has always been vocal in her expressions, she uses wimpering or barking to tell you when something isn’t right for her. Living in a flat this was difficult as we often worried about our neighbours and hoped she would quieten down. Crate training a vocal dog was difficult, we had to often sit next to her crate to reassure her. We had her sleep in our bedroom in the crate to give her the security of not being alone in it.
It's interesting how very slowly she became very happy in her crate. Progress was very slow and there were times when we wanted to give up. Other people on the internet seemed to train their dog to the crate with far more ease than we had. I often wondered if they let their dog wine and bark out their distress of being left in the crate, which is something we never did. These days she will go into her crate when she wants to seek comfort and she sleeps in the crate every night. She seems to choose the crate for bedtime rather than sleeping on the sofa!
Information online is very clear not to use the crate as a punishment in puppy training. We still use the crate in our dog training. If we find she is particularly vocal over an issue then we take her to her crate, almost instantly, to cool off. Again, we don’t lock her in the crate unless the behaviour is on the extreme side of the spectrum. And if we do lock her in its for about 30 seconds to a minute. Very rarely is she locked in because of training.
We trained out her barking behaviours by using this method of taking her to her crate each time she was loud and vocal. She used to bark each time we would go into the kitchen (have a meal, do the washing up etc). These were the early days of having her, she probably started this around 4 months old. And because in the early days she didn’t really like her crate we didn’t ever lock her in. Instead, we stood by her crate to make her stay in it. We didn’t give her any attention; she was guided to her crate in the living room and we would wait 30 seconds to a minute before walking away without saying anything.
Recently this form of training has helped when she has been barking at the doorbell going. She seems to have accepted this training routine too as her barking at the doorbell was limited to 1 week before the behaviour changed.
She tried to eat the baby’s toys and clothes in the nursery the other day and spent 1 minute locked in her crate. I wanted to communicate very clearly to her that the baby’s clothes and toys are not hers. We have been leaving the door to the nursery open to try and encourage her to learn what is and is not hers. The hope is she learns this before baby is here.
Overall, crate training Molly was the best thing we ever did! And using the crate to teach her other good behaviours has been a godsend!