Hi, I got a new chocolate labrador puppy three days ago. She is called Mabel and is adorable. I decided to crate train her and have been foliowing the suggestions in the Happy Puppy book as to how to encourage her to use it. She goes in to get her treats but shows no interest in staying there - during the day she will just sleep on the floor when she is tired. I put her in there at night (we are still having quite a lot of crying but i know it has only been three nights) and during the day when I can't supervise her (not very often). The crate is in the kitchen and at the moment that is mainly where we are spending our time. Is this normal? How long does it normally take before they decide their crate is their "den"? Thanks.
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate It sounds normal to me and early days. My pup would fall asleep on the floor, never in her crate and really she has always used it just for bed at night. The book is helpful so just stick with its advice for now. Are you feeding your pup in the crate? The first few nights can be difficult but again there's a couple of options described in the book. Best of luck and welcome!
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate Thank you. That's good to know it is normal. I am feeding her in her crate and I think she is starting to cry a little less when she is put in there now.
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate Hi and welcome to the forum I would persevere for a while longer and feed all meals and treats in the crate to make it an exciting place to be Would love to see a photo of Mabel when you get a chance
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate Hi Fiona,welcome to the forum,your pup is having a great start if you've read Pippas Happy Puppy book and found the forum,preservere with making the crate a happy ,safe place ,it's very early days...looking forward to seeing you round the boards x Angela and 2.5 year old yellow boy Dexter x
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate Welcome from the USA from me and my nearly 6 month old milk chocolate girl, Bella. ;D
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate Hi! I did all the above but Bella just isn't a fan of been shut in the crate she got very distressed, so the compromise is crate door open in kitchen part sectioned off with pen (opened out) and baby gate. Good luck ;D
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate Sounds normal early day progress. Mabel is a great name, would love to see a picture. Welcome from Emma and Meg
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate Hello from another Fiona, with 6-month old pups, Shadow and Willow. I love the name Mabel! Some puppies just don't like the crate, but persevere for a little while longer, making positive associations with it and never use it as a punishment. If you can get her used to it, it's a very helpful tool for when you need to pop out, have a shower or get some housework done, especially in the early days! My two are decrated now, but I still have it in my living room, albeit moved to a less "included" position now, so I can use it from time to time (eg when we had fifteen friends round for a pica-pica evening with lots of food out on low tables!). The pups also still like to go in there from time to time for sleeping, having chews etc. I found a good thing to do was to hide little treats in the crate without the pups seeing me do it, so it would seem as if the crate was giving them treats. They'd pop in regularly to see if there was anything tasty in there and often have a snooze while they were there. Good luck!
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate Thanks so much for all the replies. I am feeling really exhausted this morning and a bit despondent so has cheered me up! I've had dogs before (and have an elderly cairn terrier now) but I've never crate trained. I have two young boys and am really determined to make Mabel a great family dog. She is still crying whenever I put her in the crate, even when I left her with a lovely marrow bone last night! The worst time is when i get up in the night (setting my alarm as Pippa says) to let her out, when I put her back in she absolutely howls. I just want to know it will get better. She is a gorgeous little girl, already has quite good bite inhibition, and I am doing all the things suggested by the Happy Puppy book and we have been socialising like crazy. I am going to get my cairn terrier to sleep in the kitchen with her tonight to see if that helps. I will work out how to post a picture of Mabel - her little face looks permanently worried at the moment (the Vet said she needs to "grow into it"!) but she is actually very happy and her tail is always wagging. I live in Australia but am from the UK. I had a chocolate lab when I was growing up called Max - he was the most gorgeous boy ever.
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate /Users/fionacameron/Pictures/IMG_1582.jpg This is Mabel - lying next to the hated crate!
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate oh dear. That didn't work. Can someone please tell me how to insert photos? I can't find an option to insert one. Thanks
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate You have to upload the photo to another site (Flickr, photo bucket, instagram, Facebook even) and get a url for the photo (usually can right click on photo and select copy image address). Then there's a little button you can hit (it's the first icon, right under the "change colour" button for me) and then you put the url between the code that pops up… I hope that made some… any??? sense… maybe someone else can give you a bit clearer advice! For the crate training, I DESPAIRED of making Maisie happy in her crate. And she NEEDED to be crate trained, and QUIET in the crate as I rent and have class and am her only pet parent - so she had to be alone in the crate without me. There was a loooong list of things we did to make the crate fun. First of all, I'd encourage you to train a "go in the crate" command. I followed the instructions from the ASPCA weekend crate training program - https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/dog-behavior/weekend-crate-training . You can use a high value treat to associate the crate with great things. As mentioned, it's also great to sneakily put treats in the crate when she's not aware of you doing it. This means she'll go in it more often to check whether more treats have appeared. Again, high value is good. When giving any type of high value chew, a new toy, etc, give it to her in the crate. It's okay if she runs out again with it. Just associate going in the crate with getting something great. Occasionally I just get out my tinned sardines and put her in the crate (with her "in your crate" command) and feed her some sardines off a fork while she's in the crate. Basically you want the crate to equal YUMMINESS! Is the crate covered and appropriate to her size? If it's meant for a full grown lab, make sure you have a divider in. This will make it more den like. Maisie also really liked it better when she had a blanket covering the ENTIRE crate, including the front, when she was shut in. I think it really helped to not see out. I used the crate to teach "wait". This is a useful cue for teaching to wait before going through doors, etc, as well, not just a crate game. It also extended to "stay" although they tend to mean two different things. Wait is "wait here until I do something or let you go do something" and stay is "stay here until I come back". This is fairly easy to teach. Don't use words to start. Put her in the crate, close the door, and do hand signal (usually holding hand like a stop sign) and (eventually) say wait. Then open the door. If she moves towards the door, close it (this should be fast but gentle, not at all scary - like not slamming it on her head if she comes forward, I would gently poke her back before closing the door. When she doesn't move forward, give a treat. Very quick at first between opening and shutting the door and asking for the wait - don't ask for much duration at all to start. She should very quickly realize that if she moves forward, the door shuts. You can say "okay" or another release word to let her out, if you already have a different release word. Every time she waits, she gets a treat. Eventually you can build this up to moving away, coming back and giving a treat, or releasing from farther away. You can use this with doors (same principle) or other play pens, etc. I use it now for a bit of a "game" (a lazy game but has been helpful when we couldn't do running around games after her spay). I put her in a sit or a down, or in her crate, and ask her to wait. Then I walk around dropping bits of food around the apartment while she waits. Then I release her and say "okay, find it!" and she goes and gets to find all the food I dropped. I feel like it's a great impulse control game and also helpful with crate training because it teaches her - if you walk away, you come back, and also to be polite exiting the crate. Other tips for crate training: crate her while you are home. Very short periods. Put her in there with an easy to eat Kong, shut the door, cover with blanket, and then come back in 5-10 minutes to let her out. You can build up the amount of time, but this just shows her that (1) the crate doesn't always mean people are leaving and (2) you always come back so no need to fuss. Use accessible food when leaving her. My girl didn't pay attention to Kongs at first because they were too hard for her. Now she's an expert at them, so I use frozen banana + soft kibble or what not and make it quite hard to get out because I want it to take her time. However, something accessible was better at the start. I froze kibble + water + some other tasty add in (a bit of PB, etc) in a food dish so she could *see* the food and be interested in getting it out. I still use those, but also use difficult kongs. Exercise her before putting her in the crate so she is more likely to be tired (I know at night she may be tired, but if your'e doing it during the day). I hope some of those tips might help if you haven't heard them all already. I really put a lot of effort into crate training and keep doing these things on a regular basis to keep the crate interesting and a happy place for Maisie.
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate IMG_1582 by fionacameron475, on Flickr Here is Mabel - lying next to her crate and her Emma Bridgewater water bowl (spoilt)! Edited to make your image larger - hope you don't mind - pick the size when you share jacqui x
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate IMG_1598 by fionacameron475, on Flickr And already helping with the dishwasher
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate So cute Harley never took to her crate. I tried everything for about 6-8 weeks then gave up. She would go in when I went to work and was fine, but overnight or when I was home was horrendous. At 12 weeks old she was poorly so ended up coming into our bedroom, on her bed, on the floor next to me.......she slept for 8 hours solid the first night : she one usually sleeps on our bed with us and sometimes sleeps til 10/11am on weekends (silly postman woke us up this morning with a parcel for next door!). I think it's down to what you would like her to do/sleep??
Re: Puppy not keen on her crate She's lovely! It never did work for Gypsy - I did everything and she simply hated the crate. She would go in OK, but then shout the house down when put back in after a toilet break. (I never went to her when she whined or barked, so it wasn't that) So I gave up and got a puppy pen - she was right as rain, not one more whine or shout! She kept the pen clean too, no accidents at all ;D I think she simply found the crate too restricting, she likes to move to different surfaces when she sleeps. The next pup comes July-ish. I will have to decide pen or crate, we'll see - they are all different. Here is a photo of her pen.
