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Crate Training 101 - Lessons Learned

Prince Alvin During One of His Rare Moments of Rest
in His Crate

Your "dog whispering" friends are recommending crate training because of course it worked for them both during the day and over night.

You google "Puppy Crate Training, " read the articles, buy a crate, and are hopeful that this will be THE solution to your housetraining nightmares. Here's a link: Crate Training a Puppy or Adult Dog.

I agree that crate training will work for your puppy under these conditions:

• you are disciplined,
• the pup is healthy, and
• you follow the crate training guidelines outlined online.

Prince Alvin the Bichon Cockapoo was NOT blessed with owners who stuck to crate training rules. We used a crate at night and when we were out for short time frames.

During the day, I stuck to the standard schedule -

pup goes outside

• when he gets up,
• after meals,
• after a nap,
• after playing,
• before bedtime

Also, take away the water bowl after about 8 pm.

The rules are that you take the pup out every few hours at night (hours = dog's age in months plus one). Alvin's time interval should have been 3 - 4 hours. Except that Alvin had a urinary tract infection (the infection was being treated with antibiotics) and cried every two hours to be taken out. Over a two-week period, I probably logged about 3 hours of sleep every night and was showing definite signs of sleep deprivation.

When he started peeing in the crate repeatedly, it was time to change the method. Remember this is NOT supposed to happen because dogs do not like to soil where they sleep.

Here's what I learned from this experience:

1) Know the signs of a urinary tract infection.
Try this link Urinary Tract Infection in Dogs and see if it helps you determine if your dog has a UTI. Alvin was peeing every 1 - 2 hours and drinking a lot of water. A lab test at the vet's confirmed the UTI.

2) When the pup crate trains YOU, it's time to change the method.
By the time Alvin's UTI started to clear up, he was fed up with the crate and wanted out. He developed the every 2-hour whining routine. This leads to #3.

3) Stick to the guidelines.
If your dog is healthy and you just took him out, but he's whining, put the crate in another room on the other side of the house/apartment, and set an alarm for the next time he's supposed to be let out (hours = dog's age in months plus one). Alvin's other family members can't handle his whining, so this did not work for us.

Hope this helps eliminate problems with your puppy's crate training.

Bringing Your New Pup Home - Housetraining Prep

Prince Alvin sez, "Yes, I will destroy these Poop Bags!"

Why bother to prepare yourself for housetraining BEFORE your new pup arrives home for the first time? Failure to think about how you will housetrain your pup = lots of accidents = much frustration and sleep deprivation.

Housetraining is clearly the most important type of dog training and sets the ground work for other training. It requires scheduling, persistence, patience, consistency, and time. Your pup may follow the breed housetraining trend (for example, pugs are notoriously difficult to train; so it figures that a pug mix may follow the trend) or not. Depends on the trainer - YOU!

I am not going to repeat housetraining procedures in this post, nor will I debate the best method to housetrain. There's plenty of this type of information on the web. Instead, I'm asking that you do some research, talk to your friends who have dogs, and answer the following questions about housetraining:

1) What method will you use?
Crate training, sticking to a strict schedule (outside after meals, after playing, after a nap, when the pup wakes up in the morning, and before he goes to sleep at night), or some other method you discovered?

We were new to dog training and Alvin cried in the crate way too much for our comfort level, so we decided to stick to a strict schedule. During the day he goes outside according to the schedule listed above.

At first, whenever I deviated from the schedule one little bit, there was an accident. Two months later, accidents happen much less frequently, but the Prince is still on a schedule. We need to know his whereabouts at all times. For example, today he was confined to the deck while we were weeding next to the deck. He started to bark at the gate, seemingly for no reason, and then disappeared. A few minutes later we discovered he left us a present on the deck. Our double bad – he let us know by barking at the gate (door), but we ignored him AND we broke our own rule by leaving him unattended.

2) How many puppy caregivers are there? Are all the caregivers in agreement about the housetraining method? Who’s responsible for what puppy housetraining activities?

You’ll experience fewer panic situations (where IS that pup?), blaming and arguing if all caregivers know what to do and when.

3) Have you bought the essential equipment needed for housetraining?

Refer to the following blog entries for the equipment you need:
Bringing Your New Pup Home - Are You Ready??
Bringing Your New Pup Home continued

Note that these lists do not include “pee pee pads” and diapers. Alvin shreds pee pee pads and dogs look real dumb in diapers. I'm sure they serve a purpose, but they're not for Alvin.

4) What location will the pup use for elimination??
I know this sounds like a relatively insignificant question, but remember the word consistency I mentioned above. Taking the pup to the same spot every time expedites the dog’s association with one outdoor spot as the place to eliminate. Watch – your pup will start leading YOU to his spot sooner than you think.

Similarly, once you get into the habit of exiting through the same door every time you go out, another association will develop for your pup. I always wonder how a New Yorker in a high rise teaches housetraining. That’s a lot of associations and a long time frame to wait for a young pup. Maybe that’s where the pee pee pads come into play.

We use the word “Outside” every time we open the door to let Alvin out on his lease and “Hurry Up” when we arrive at his spot outdoors. You have to be careful not to say “Hurry Up” indoors.