We will be picking up our puppy in about a week, and i have a crate ready for him. We also have an older dog who is crate trained, but we are unsure of a few points.. We don't intend to leave our puppy in the crate for extended periods. My wife works from home so she will monitor his behavior in the house while I'm away. He will be sleeping in his crate at night, and i intend to move the crate next to our bed for the first few nights before leaving it in its normal location. Our older dog is about 6 and she is a maltese-like rescue. She is trained to return to her crate when we use the word "kennel", and she will not wet or soil it if we leave her in the kennel while we are away a few hours. She does not sleep in it. She is not left in the kennel when we leave because she is very well house broken. In the room where both crates will normally be kept, should they be near each other or distant? Is there a way to use the older dog to assist in helping our puppy become crate trained quicker? When our puppy is older, but not yet house broken, we will be leaving him in the kennel while we are running errands. Should we kennel both dogs, or is it okay to leave our older one free while Captain is crated?
Hi @Anthony Abrao Welcome to the forum. I think you need to first get the dogs used to each other. Do the introduction on neutral territory. Go for a walk. See how they interact. Do not force interaction. Let them walk separately. Reward calm behaviour. Don't let either dog bully the other. Don't play favourites. Have them on house lines when you finally get home so you can prevent anything untowards. Now I address your questions. Initially I wouldn't put the two crates next to each other. Let them adjust to each other by not forcing proximity. You can adjust over time as your read their body language. I doubt whether there will be much learning from mimicry. Crate training is a multi-layered experience for the puppy, and a complex behaviour. But it certainly will not be a hindrance that your older dog behaves so well. In principle you should treat them equally. But clearly if the puppy is not toilet trained then he can't be let loose. We let our older dog slepp in another room uncrated. The younger dog did not look out of the crate. So she wasn't aware, I hope, of the differential treatment. We found the younger dog settled better with a blanket over the side of the crate. But you have to read the situation. Just be prepared to be flexible. The blanket may create anxiety in that the dog can hear noises but not seethe source. I would set up a camera to film what happens when you leave for say 30 seconds. Then 1 minute. Two minutes and so on. You would not want to leave the dogs if one or both become distressed. Good luck. It will be fun. But a lot of work.
@Michael A Brooks, thanks for the response. We will definitely be introducing them on neutral ground. We have a park nearby that is more like a big field of grass rather than a play park, and it is rarely used.If the weather per,its, we will be introducing them there. If not, there is a covered bench area at another park we will use. This park is usually fairly busy, but we expect it to be empty if the weather is bad. I have a GoPro, so I will easily be able to do video monitoring. I hadn't thought of that.
