Training your new puppy can take a few days or weeks, depending on several factors such as your dog breed, age, and temperament. Getting your best friend use to his crate should be done in several “baby” steps. At Dog Crates Depot, we recommend following these five steps to ensure your puppy enjoys this new environment.

Step #1 Finding the right placement for dog crate

Finding the right spot in the house to place your crate is the first step towards getting your pet to get familiarized with it. Dog crates should be placed in a room close to the action of the house. We typically suggest the family room or if you live in a condo in the master bedroom. Placing a blanket on the crate will reduce anxiety for your dog and will provide him with a feel of comfort. Once you’ve decided where to put your kennel, the next step is introducing it to your dog.

Step #2 The introduction phase

Introduce the crate to your dog by letting the doors open and see if your puppy will be curious about it. Most dogs are curious by nature and will want to visit it without further instructions and sometimes even sleep in them on day one. Your goal on the first 2-3 days should be to get your dog to visit the crate without you asking for it. Some trainers use treats or toys as a way to get their puppy to see the kennel as often as possible. After noticing that your dog enjoys his crate, you can process step #3 that we call our progressive crate training approach.

Step #3 The progressive training approach

The most critical step in the crate training process is the progressive training approach. Since your dog now likes to visit his kennel, you want him to now be able to stay in it for a specific duration of time. We recommend new dog owners crate their puppy for 30 minutes on the first day while staying close to him and increase the length of time progressively from there. We also recommend you feed your dog in his crate for him to feel like this is his area. After usually two weeks, your dog should be able to stay in his crate for a couple of hours with no problem. Your dog should not be left in his kennel for long extended hours (Example 12 hours) as most dogs will lose patience or feel anxiety and will find ways to break the crate apart.

Step #4 Crating your dog at night

For your dog to understand that he needs to sleep in his crate, you want to have the treat approach before bedtime. At the beginning of the crate training process, we recommend placing the crate in your bedroom. Your dog feels close to you while having to sleep. After a short little while, that will give your pet enough confidence in his new environment, and you will be able to move the crate back into the family room or other spot in the house.

Step #5 Crating your dog when leaving your house

Leave your dog in his crate when you leave your home is the final step towards dog crate training. For this step, you need to use the same progressive approach as step number 3 but leave your house for a short time. We recommend going for 15 minutes the first day, 30 minutes the second day, etc. Again, we do not recommend leaving your dog inside his crate for a long duration of time.

If all those steps are still making your dog feel anxious or makes him cry while In his crate, we recommend visiting a dog trainer that will be able to implement further steps into training your dog. Different dog breeds bring different temperaments and challenges, and some dogs are a lot harder to train than others. Regardless, a good dog trainer always has a solution to make your puppy fight those feelings and make sure to enjoy his life as much as possible.