Dog Ownership & Training

---

Every dog should be crate trained, even if you plan on leaving your dog free roaming  when you are not at home. Crate training provides your dog with a safe space of their own where they can go to relax when they are stressed, it provides an option for you to secure your dog in the event of an emergency, it helps with housebreaking, and it can help you prevent separation anxiety in your dog. We recommend keeping the crate out and available to your dog even after they have mastered crate training and will not be locked in the crate so that they have somewhere safe and comfortable to call their own when they want to relax.

Basics of Crate Training

The most important part of crate training is to make sure your dog is not afraid of the crate. The crate should be a safe and comfortable place for your dog, not a place you force it to go as punishment. In order to ensure that your dog does not become afraid of the crate, you should never lock the dog in the crate until it is clear that they love it in there.

First, start with the dog's crate inside a pen, and leave the door to the crate open. The crate should be just big enough for your dog to comfortably stand, lie down, and turn around. If it is too small, it will be uncomfortable and they will never like it. If it is too big, they will be able to go to the bathroom in one side of the crate and sleep in the other side of the crate, which will make house breaking more difficult instead of easier. You should also use a carabiner to secure the open door of the crate to the side of the pen so that the crate cannot close by accident and potentially scare the dog. Put a bed and some safe toys in the crate, put a potty pad in the pen (outside the crate), and put the dog in the pen. Eventually, the dog will probably learn to relax and settle in the crate naturally, and you can move on to the next step. If the dog does not begin naturally using the crate, or if the dog already has confinement anxiety due to their history, you can try securing a Kong or lick mat inside the back of the crate to lure the dog into the crate. After a long enough duration of treating the dog with enrichment inside the crate, they will be comfortable enough in there to move onto the next step.

Next, begin closing the crate when the dog is relaxing inside it for increasing periods of time, but start small (like 5 seconds) and work slowly. If the dog does not try to leave the crate or display other signs of stress, this will happen quickly and easily. If the dog does show stress, move backwards a few steps. Eventually, the dog should be able and willing to spend the whole night in the crate, but you should leave the door open anytime you are asleep or absent. Once the dog is truly content in the crate, whether you are there or not, even throughout the night, you can consider them crate trained and use the crate (and a nanny cam) to work on conditioning the dog to prevent separation anxiety.

House Breaking

Keeping a potty pad inside the dog's pen and using an appropriate size crate will help solidify your dog's natural state of cleanliness and prevent it from ever going to the bathroom in the crate. Watch your dog/puppy as closely as you can, and let them outside frequently, to avoid accidents and learn your dog's body language when they are looking for a place to pee or poop. Once you know their signs, you can begin waiting until they are ready to go before you take them outside, but frequent trips still will not hurt. If an accident does occur, do not yell at the dog or rub their nose in it; just take the dog outside immediately so that they associate the action of eliminating with being outside. Any time the dog goes to the bathroom outside, praise them in a high pitched voice and with a clicker and treats and make a huge deal out of it like they just won the Nobel Prize. If you follow all of these guidelines concurrently with crate training, your dog will quickly learn where they are expected to eliminate. If these steps are not working, check with your veterinarian to see if the dog might be incontinent due to a UTI or some other medical issue, and then consult with a behaviorist if the issue is not medical.

Shelter/rescue dogs—even those who are already house-trained—will sometimes forget this at first. This is often because they have become accustomed to being in a shelter setting, and the associated stress and/or confusing concrete floor (not sure if they're inside or outside) has resulted in them peeing and/or pooping in their kennel. This typically is solved with the above steps, but sometimes it takes a while before the dog is back in their routine of going outside.

If you punish your dog for having an accident inside, your dog will become distrustful and afraid of you. If you do this more than a few seconds after the accident occurs, your dog will not even understand that it is the action of peeing/pooping inside that you are punishing—they will associate the presence of urine or feces with punishment and avoid you anytime they have an accident (even if it is not their fault!) They will also try to hide the accident in a part of the home that you do not typically/often spend time in, even if the issue was caused by you getting caught up at work and spending an extra few hours there so you dog was unable to hold it. Punishment encourages deceit and hinders trust and confidence in your dog.

If you need to leave your dog home alone for a long period of time (so long that you are unsure whether they will have an accident inside), leave them in a room or pen with puppy pads; do NOT leave them in their crate, as this could cause them to have an accident and stop seeing their crate as a safe and clean space. If the dog normally roams the whole house while you are gone, leave potty pads by the door they normally use to go outside; if they are normally crated, put a pen around the crate or put the crate in a closed room and put the puppy pad(s) by the door.

Teething

For teething puppies, do not punish them when they bite too hard with their little needle teeth. This is the period of time during which they are learning proper bite inhibition. If you yelp or say "ow" in a high pitched voice, it is technically punishment because it will decrease the behavior, but it emulates the sound that other puppies make to teach them how hard of a bite is too hard. When your puppy is over-aroused (still learning impulse control at that age) and keeps biting you, stick a soft rubber chew toy in their mouth so they have something to soothe their teeth and gums.