The benefits of crate training your dog.
We’ve all heard it: “that’s mean”, “my dog is meant to roam around” and “its doggie prison”; but for those of us who use crates for our dogs, we know it’s the opposite. A crate or kennel can help with a variety of issues, from house training and curbing the destruction inevitable with a puppy to having a “home” within your home for a dog that might get stressed out. Recently, my family gave a temporary home to a 1 year old lab. As anyone familiar with labs knows, he is still a puppy and my 3 year old dog, who loves to play, got tired after a while. His crate became where he could go- I’d shut the door and he’d take a timeout from his new friend.
To crate your dog correctly, size matters. The size of the dog should determine the size of the crate. Your dog should be able to stand up, turn around in a small circle, and lie down comfortably. The crate is a place where your dog can rest and chew on safe, appropriate toys. Time is also important, a puppy cannot be crated for a whole day, a good guideline is to crate a puppy for no more than one hour for every month of age of your puppy, 3 months old? No longer than 3 hours. Adult dogs can be trained to stay in their crate up to about 10 hours. Your dog should be allowed to play and exercise both before and after going into the crate.
As stated before, your adult dog can be trained to stay in a crate all day, but it is not without training. Start off by removing any correction collar, choke chain, or the like. As dog wearing one of those collars can get caught on something and hurt or kill himself. Also, trying to go a full day right away can cause your dog to panic and hurt himself. Start off by allowing your dog to test the crate, go in and out with the door open. Make the crate inviting, use treats when the dog goes in and you close the door for a minute or two and increase the time in the crate over the next few days. Never let another dog or child trap your dog in the crate or discipline your dog in the crate. If your dog fears the crate, it’s all for nothing. The crate should be where your dog goes to feel secure. For more information of crate training visit http://www.paws.org/crate-training-benefits.html.
~Written by Susan Bruck
We’ve all heard it: “that’s mean”, “my dog is meant to roam around” and “its doggie prison”; but for those of us who use crates for our dogs, we know it’s the opposite. A crate or kennel can help with a variety of issues, from house training and curbing the destruction inevitable with a puppy to having a “home” within your home for a dog that might get stressed out. Recently, my family gave a temporary home to a 1 year old lab. As anyone familiar with labs knows, he is still a puppy and my 3 year old dog, who loves to play, got tired after a while. His crate became where he could go- I’d shut the door and he’d take a timeout from his new friend.
To crate your dog correctly, size matters. The size of the dog should determine the size of the crate. Your dog should be able to stand up, turn around in a small circle, and lie down comfortably. The crate is a place where your dog can rest and chew on safe, appropriate toys. Time is also important, a puppy cannot be crated for a whole day, a good guideline is to crate a puppy for no more than one hour for every month of age of your puppy, 3 months old? No longer than 3 hours. Adult dogs can be trained to stay in their crate up to about 10 hours. Your dog should be allowed to play and exercise both before and after going into the crate.
As stated before, your adult dog can be trained to stay in a crate all day, but it is not without training. Start off by removing any correction collar, choke chain, or the like. As dog wearing one of those collars can get caught on something and hurt or kill himself. Also, trying to go a full day right away can cause your dog to panic and hurt himself. Start off by allowing your dog to test the crate, go in and out with the door open. Make the crate inviting, use treats when the dog goes in and you close the door for a minute or two and increase the time in the crate over the next few days. Never let another dog or child trap your dog in the crate or discipline your dog in the crate. If your dog fears the crate, it’s all for nothing. The crate should be where your dog goes to feel secure. For more information of crate training visit http://www.paws.org/crate-training-benefits.html.
~Written by Susan Bruck