If you haven’t discovered by now, I LOVE crate training! This is one of my all-time favorite commands. It is really just a modified version of place training, which I also love.

Why does crate training work? It gives you a way to easily manage your dog when visitors come over, it is a low-stress way to transport and travel with your dog, it allows you to bring your dog to places but keep her contained and out of the way. Crate training is a must!

What is crate training? To me, crate training is:

1. Being able to tell your dog to “kennel” from any distance/any room in the house/in any situation, and to have her fly into the nearest crate and stay there until you give a different cue.

2. Crate training is being able to stay in the crate, even with the door open for extended periods of time, such as 1-2 hours.

3. Crate training is being able to stay in a closed crate quietly and calmly for 1-3 hours at a time.

This is obviously a tall order and takes time and consistency to train, but a crate trained dog is so worth it!

Here are a few tips for successful crate training:

• Always give a treat when your dog goes in the crate, always.
• In the beginning, you may want to leave the door shut unless you are specifically working on crate training to keep it special.
• If you are going to leave your dog in the crate for more than 1 hour, your dog should always have something to do – a stuffed KONG, a bully stick, or at the very least a Nylabone (though for the majority of the time, you should aim for something a bit higher value than a Nylabone).
• Make your crate nice and cozy. Put a cover over the top and put in a nice, cozy bed. For young dogs or dogs who chew bedding, Kuranda makes some great durable dog beds that are extremely difficult for a dog to destroy.
• Practice makes perfect! Don’t just wait until you have guests over to work on crate training. Practice every day, so that your dog just thinks that crate training is just a part of the day.

Happy training!