Hi, We picked up our 8 week on lab 5 days ago and he’s fantastic. We have the crate in our bedroom at night and he sleeps from 11pm until 6ish in the morning. I’ve got the week off to spend time with him but back to work next week. We both work from home and need to leave him in the crate or pen for periods in the day. we will give him lots of attention throughout the day but we need to keep him safe and out of harms way during calls etc. He has no issue going in the pen particularly if you are in there playing with him or just sitting there with him. he’s happy sleeping in the crate. even if we are in the same room he complains when the pen or crate. he does settle after a while 5-10 mins and falls asleep but how to we get him bring happy just chilling out in the crate or pen. We make sure we don’t get him out until he quite. We don’t want him to start hating the crate or pen. He tends to sleep for an hour and then we play for an hour which is repeated until bedtime. thanks for any guidance
I have been following this snd ours is doing really well. https://thehappypuppysite.com/crate-training-a-puppy/
Hi Blackmac! We are at stage 2 with the happy puppy crate training instructions and thought you might be able to give us insight or tips! Puppy is almost 10 weeks. She sleeps well at night in a small travel crate in our room. We have been crate training during the day in her crate in our main living area where she will eventually sleep. So - stage 2 - she is happy chewing her stuffed kong for anywhere between 10-15 minutes and does not even look at us (we sit by the crate and read our emails and scroll the web on our phone) After the kong is finished she sits up quietly and looks at us. We give her the occasional kibble treat through the wire to extend the time. She will whine a very small amount and very quietly, and of course we don’t give her a treat when she whines. Today we managed 20 minutes in the crate doing this (after building up from 50 secs earlier in the week) She remained sitting up for the last part of the training session and we let her out (when quiet of course - we only let her out when quiet and calm) Do we need to extend the duration of each crate session in stage 2? Or should we remain at 20 minutes for each session, now that we are at this point, and just wait until she lays down and shows us that she is relaxed? (We don’t want to move on to stage 3 just yet due to her sitting attentively waiting for us to do something after the kong is done!) Also - 20 minutes is my goal as this will be the approximate school drop off time when I will need to leave her alone each morning and afternoon. We will gradually increase this time so that eventually she can be in her crate for a maximum of 2 hours when I return to my 2 day a week job. (Hoping I can utilise puppy day care for half days then crate at home for 2 x 2 hour periods in the afternoons with a pop in by my father) Thanks in advance for you insight!
