#crate training

[intriga-hounds]

Sabran at 11pm last night…

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Me: Why does no one crate train their dog anymore?

Me, scrolling the comments on a cute video of a puppy sleeping in a comfortable crate: I’m starting to understand why all the dogs at work act like they’ve never been crated in their life.

[hispuppygrl]

Emhoe

[puppydvll]

i’ve been big into omorashi these days

[yeyinde]

overeager slutpuppy reader and dog trainer Ghost is all i can think about tbh

[torchtails]

Someone gotta lock me in a cage untill I know how to be quiet

[hazard-and-friends]

Do you have any toy/treat recommendations for helping kennel train a younger dog? Something to keep them occupied and minimize the screaming and crying (which I know will happen to some degree regardless). Bonus points for things that are not easily destroyed.

I sat on this for apparently a month, one because my brain was filled with weevils and I couldn't make the words happen until now, and two because I kept trying to find a polite(r) way to answer this.

Because no, I do not. That's not how I go about crate training, and it's not how I recommend going about crate training.

When I had an actual baby dog and the crate was routinely used to prevent accidents, it had: a bed, one long lasting chew, one toy (no squeaky toys). This was for daytime use because she might very well be awake and need something to do with her brain. Her nighttime crate just had a bed, except for when she hit the stage where she decided she needed a toy to come to bed with her (K'seil's tendency to pick a Very Special Toy a la a human toddler is one of her more endearing quirks.)

But this was a management problem, I needed her to be in the crate for extended periods (because she had a bladder the size of a peanut and could not be trusted not to dismember hairbrushes if left unsupervised) and could not afford to take the weeks/months that crate training takes.

When I'm actually crate training someone, there should be minimal screaming and crying. My rule of thumb for infants (<6 months) is that if it goes on for 10 minutes, this is probably panic and I need to let them out and come up with a new plan; if it's less than 10 minutes AND it gets quickly better over repeated trials, it's probably fussing and we can let it fade to extinction.

But like, when teaching Hazard to settle in a crate, when working his car skills, when getting either or both of them to hang out quietly ringside while I go do something...None of that involves any screaming or crying, because if there's screaming, my training has gone horribly awry and I need to go back and reset. All of it is happening sub-threshold, before the point where the dog gets distressed.

If I needneed quiet crate time RIGHT NOW and my dog doesn't have the skills to do it, I will do a variety of attempted bribes (yak chews, bully sticks, beef cheek rolls, pig ears depending on bribability of dog). But that's not training, that's bribing the dog to stay quiet.

[ambrosia-sdit]

my little bundle of joy decided to wake me up at 5 am this morning -_- she usually starts whining in her crate around 6/6:30, but it’s been getting progressively earlier and i draw the line at 5! this morning, i took her outside, and put her back in her crate until 6:30 (she whined for about 45 minutes of that) and when i finally let her out, she just went back to sleep outside the crate for several more hours.

i’m so incredibly frustrated because i haven’t been able to fall asleep at night until late recently and she won’t sleep in the mornings. does anyone have any advice?