- A lot of people struggle
with crate training their dog, so today I'm gonna teach you
five tips that can help you successfully sail through crate training, and teach your puppy to love their crate. I'm Kayl McCann and
today I'm gonna be using here, hop up, hop up, yay, my
seven month old border collie puppy Beeline and welcome
back to McCann dogs. (guitar strumming) (puppy barking) Thanks for joining us McCann dogs, where every single Thursday we
post brand new videos to help enrich your dogs life and
to help your dog become a better four legged family member. Now, we're gonna talk
first about crate training and the first thing I
wanted to explain to you is there's basically two
different types of crates that are great for puppies. One would be a wire crate and
the second would be a plastic, enclosed crate. There are other types of
crates out there like soft sided crates or crates that
are easier to move around, but when you're dealing
with a baby puppy those aren't exactly safe choices
to start off with your puppy. So one of the things I like
to do to begin training, okay, training my puppies to like
the crate is start by doing little fun games to get her
to happily get her to go in and out of the crate without any stress. So I don't put her in and
lock her in there right away. I might just do some fun
things to get her willingly to go in and then I let her
come right back out again. So, I have a couple of treats here and I'm just gonna throw them
into the back of the crate, so that she can hear
them hit off the crate. Okay, yay good girl. Just let her go in and get the treats. Okay. And then I let her come out. We'll try that again. Okay. Good girl, yes okay. That a good girl, very nice. Now once you've repeated that a few times, the next thing I like to do is play a little offering game. So I have, oh yes. Good girl. Just like that. I have the treats ready, I
wait til she offers to go in and then I reward her. Good girl. So all of the food, yes get
it, is always being delivered while she's inside the crate. So that's like her favorite part. Okay Bee. Yes, good girl. And I can either feed by hand, or I can toss some cookies
into the back of the crate so she can get them out. Good girl, okay one more time. Yes, you''re so smart missy. She's already waiting in the
back of the crate for them. Good girl, very nice. Fun little game to play with
your dog that teaches them that the crate is very very fun. Good girl. When you're choosing a crate
for your puppy try to make sure that it's properly sized. Now, if you have a bigger breed
that's going to be growing over a long period of time,
if you have friends that you can borrow their crates
that would be helpful, or you can buy bigger
crates and buy barricades that can sort of grow with
your dog as they get bigger. Now the ideal size for a
crate for a dog or a puppy is for it to be big enough
that they can lie down, stretch their legs out and turn
around easily in the crate. If it's any bigger than
that, a lot of puppies tend to use one end as their play or sleep area and then often use the other
end as their potty area and that can sort of
open a world of issues. So keeping the crate small
enough that they want to keep it nice and clean as their den, will help prevent any bathroom issues that your puppy may be having. Now, one of the tricks that
you can do to help your dog to not go to the bathroom
in the crate is to make sure that you don't have any
absorbent type of material in their crate. Whether it be towels or blankets
or even stuffed animals. I have known many puppies
to go to the bathroom on their bedding or their stuffy
and push it off to the side so the rest of their area
to sleep in is quite clean. Dogs are fairly clean animals, they don't necessarily like
to lie in their own mess. So, its nice for them to be
able to push it off to the side. So, if you don't leave
anything in their crate that they can pee on. They typically will try to
hold their bladder a little bit longer and hopefully if
you're lucky they'll be able to make a noise or make
a sound to let you know they have to go outside and then of course you can let them out from there. Now puppies have little
tine bladders, which means they cannot necessarily hold their bladder for a really long time. So it's in your best
interest to take your puppy to the bathroom often so
they don't end up going to the washroom in their crate. Now normally for the
first couple of nights, I find that I do have to
get up once or maybe twice throughout the night to let
them go to the washroom, but usually by night three
or four they're able to sleep throughout the night and then
I'll end up having to get up a bit early in the
morning to let them out. But usually at that point
they can go anywhere from six to seven hours without
having to be let out. But that's something that
you have to do gradually and every dog is different. I have a little toy poodle,
she took a little longer to be able to do that because
her bladder is so tiny. Beeline, my latest puppy she
was able to sleep through the night I believe, by the second or third night without issues. But again she's a little bit bigger breed, easier for her to hold her bladder. Another thing that may
help your puppy to not go to the bathroom in their
crate is reducing the amount of water that they have at
a certain time of night. So for example maybe after eight o'clock, no more water in their crate. Now I've had other issues
with water in the crate. I own dogs that all tend to love swimming in their water dish. So whenever I do put water in their crate, I'm very careful to secure
the bowl to the crate very very well, so they
can't pop the bowl off and splash water everywhere. And if I can't secure it, then
I'll let them have a drink and then I'll take the
bowl out of the crate. Rather than leaving it in there with them. And that usually helps provide a much cleaner area for the puppy. It's also a really good idea
to keep the crate close by you. So when I have a new puppy home, I generally have more than
one crate for that puppy. I usually put one crate in
the family area of my home, a place that we can see
the puppy at all times. Make sure the puppies with us. And then I have a second
crate that I usually put in my bedroom and that's where
the puppy will sleep at night. That way if they stir or make any noise, I can decide at that
time whether they have to go to the washroom
and that I need to get up and let them out, or if its been few days and
I think dog is able to hold their bladder. I can address the noise in
the crate and start teaching the puppy to be able to sleep
quietly through the night and not have to go out until the morning. The other thing that I do with
my dogs for quite some time even til they're several
months old, even older, is I give them all of
their meals in their crate. So breakfast and dinner inside
their crate and what starts to happen, is when they
hear the kibble hit the bowl and I say do you want your
breakfast, are you hungry? Okay. She just jumps right in
that crate because she knows dinner's gonna be served or
breakfast is gonna be served in the crate. And then I can put the bowl
inside the crate with her and then I can shut the
crate door, that gets her used to eating and being
rewarded while she's in the crate with the door shut. And then we can go from there
and it's a great way to get the dog to offer to go in that
crate really easily without any battles whatsoever. I found crate training to
be extremely beneficial in the way that I've been
able to raise my dogs. Its reduced the amount of
mistakes that my dogs have had in the house, as far
as house training goes. Its prevented them from
chewing things in my house. Its also helped me with
any behavioral issues that I may have had. It just allows me to make
sure that when I'm not able to supervise and give my
dog great information that, I know there are ways
somewhere safe that they can't get into mischief
and that they can just be calm and relaxed. But on top of that, I try to
make sure that I make the crate a really, really great place for my dogs. Now we have quite a few dogs
and many of them are old enough and trained enough now that
they don't need their crates, but I think they would
be very sad if we took their crate away. Often if we can't find, even
our oldest dog, we found she snuck away and she's
sleeping in a crate somewhere in a dog bed, upside
down completely in love. So, if you teach the dog that
the crate is a great place, not only does it help you,
but it also gives the dog a place that they can go and
hang out and be happy as well. Now if you liked today's video, make sure you give us a thumbs up. Please subscribe to our
channel, we post every Thursday. Whether it's topics like
this, puppy training, all kinds of fabulous information. And if you found that crate
training has helped you and your dog with anything
related to house training or chewing or behavioral
issues, we would love to hear about it in the comments below. And if you have any questions
about crate training make sure you comment below in that as well. For now this is Beeline, I'm Kayl. Thanks for watching.
