Our puppy Jaks is 11 weeks old and we tried the crate/pen set up when we first brought him home, but Jaks would never go into the crate, he liked to sleep on the hardwood floor. We took the pen away and put it in the living room and now have a baby gate for the kitchen for when we are gone, the pen in the main room for time outs when he is biting excessively or antagonizing our older dog ( this is where we spend most our time) and crate also in the open area. We feed in the crate, put toys in there, kongs, etc.. he will NOT settle down in the crate for anything. We toss treats in there and try to make it super inviting however he still freaks out, we have done clicker training, tried short stints, he never actually lays down.. I mean NEVER. He does have a separate crate next to our bed in which he sleeps and does just fine in, though there were some nights we had to suck up all our willpower not to give into his whining. We had our first full night of sleep last night.. hoping it wasn't a fluke. We are having pretty good success with the pen and kitchen/baby gate set up and thinking of not forcing the crate downstairs. Would appreciate any advice/thoughts.
I think you have to do what works for you. My parents in law had a pup who NEVER liked his crate. The dog proofed a room and lived with any nibbling while he grew out of the bitey phase. Other people have used pens rather than crates. I'm sure @Boogie had one pup who loathed a crate. There will be plenty of training battles you need to win so there's nothing wrong with a bit of sensible pragmatism every now and then
I had the same with Gypsy, I gave up with the crate ~ she was fine. Here is a link to her blog, the bit about the crate is near the beginning of the blog ~ she was 12 weeks old. http://gdpgypsy.blogspot.co.uk/ From the blog "It worked, hurrah! I put her to bed at 10pm and she settled straight away, no shouting in the night. It's good to have a full night's sleep after 4 weeks! No puppy pads as I was convinced she'd tear them to shreds. She settled well and I set the alarm for 6:30 and she was quiet, clean and dry when I came down. Phew. It looks like it was simply a case of crate-hate! I have never known this with any of my dogs, since we got married we have had four and all have loved their crates. It just goes to show that they are all different.' ...
I read your blog and story about the crate training. We really want to move forward with the crate training especially since we might need him to be crated from time to time for travel or for boarding should we need to board him for anything. We have a large plastic crate that we had used for our old dog, perhaps we should try the metal crate? He is doing so well in his soft sided crate at night but we know we cannot use that one long term. Looks like we will have to put some long nights in to get this worked out.
Both mine went in metal crates to start with. If you have a pen then I would put the crate in the pen and just try and make it the best possible place to be but leave the door open. You have the pen to contain him so take the pressure off the crate. Feed him in there, put his best toys in there. When he's dozy entice him in. Then once he seems more relaxed close the door and open it. Once. Then a few times. Then a bit longer..... I'm sure you've thought about all this already. If he's anything like my crate hater you need to avoid turning it into a battle of wills or you'll just all be miserable. Take your time and see if you can get him to.love it. I'm planning on redoing our crate training in case I need it like you and that's my plan.... Good luck!
If you put bedding in his crate, or even if you don't, he might find it gets too hot lying in the same spot all the time. Though I see he does sleep at night in a crate by your bed. FWIW I haven't crated mine in the usual sense. I put the crate with the door open in a pen or our gated kitchen. Sometimes they went in and slept there, often they slept outside the crate. Oban in particular seemed to find it hot and I'd usually find him sprawled out on the kitchen floor in the morning and that was in winter when the heat went down at night.
He does seem to prefer lying on the floor to a bed or carpet. We have moved the big crate upstairs to start trying to get him used to it for at least sleeping at night to start with, we have placed it outside our bedroom in the hallway. We will do this a couple nights then will get a baby monitor to move it downstairs. Since he is pretty much getting the potty training down, I was hesitant to even force the formal crate training, however we are being told that it is really in his ( and our ) best interest to get him used to being crated. I will plan to put the crate in the kitchen with the baby gate while leaving him home the next week or two, that might help him get more used to it. Puppy raising isn't for wimps!!
the heat was a problem for Rory too in the end I had to put in a very small piece of fleece and even then he would move it and lie on the cold plastic.
