When to stop using the dog crate
Comments (1)A big part of my business is training puppies. I recommend crate training for every puppy. Dog owners always want to know when they can stop using the crate in their training efforts. There is a two part answer to this question:
Weaning your dog off the crate at night time: The first time period where you can wean your dog off the crate is at night when you are sleeping. Normally I like to see that the dog has been sleeping through the night without any problems (whining, going to the bathroom, etc.) for several months. If the dog has been doing this well for several months then at the age of eight or nine months I will allow the dog to sleep outside the crate for one night. At this stage it is just an experiment and I like to stack the deck in my favor. I will provide a little bed for the dog to sleep on, I will ‘puppy proof’ the room, and I will close the bedroom door so the dog can’t wander the house.
If the dog lasts the night without any wrongdoings, excellent! He now earned a second night. If he continues to progress I will continue allowing him to sleep outside the crate.
If he does something wrong, however, I will go back to the crate the following night. Depending on the dog I will then wait a month or more before experimenting again with the dog sleeping outside of the crate.
Weaning your dog off the crate while you are gone: The second area where you need to wean the dog off the crate is during the day while you are at work or out of the house.
I usually wait until at least a year of age before moving on to this step. Of course I am assuming that the dog has been problem free in the house (no housebreaking accidents, chewing, destruction, etc.) for at least six months or more while I am at home. If that is the case it is time to move on to this step.
It is imperative that you don’t give too much freedom too quickly. What you want to do is leave for two or three minutes. Don’t say anything when you leave, don’t say anything when you come back. Simply go, stay outside for a couple minutes, then return. If the dog does well next time you can stay out a bit longer. Gradually increase the time you leave until you can do an hour or two. When you get to that point it can be a few hours. Once that happens you can typically leave for an eight hour work day and rely on your dog to be trustworthy.
If the dog, at any time, backslides and does something wrong you need to take a step back in the training. If all goes well you can usually go from five minutes alone in the house to eight hours alone in the house in two to six months of training. If everything goes well that means that at about 14-18 months of age you can leave the dog alone without worrying that the dog will poop all over and eat your sofa.
Many people are able to accelerate this program rapidly and have a dog home alone for hours well before these times. Many people can’t, however, so I always teach people to be conservative. It doesn’t hurt to put in extra training for long term benefit.
Good luck with your crate training efforts.
A question about aggression with a German Shepherd
Comments (0)This is a recent question from a reader of my website:
Question: I have a three year old German Shepherd that I have raised & trained since he was seven weeks old. He has been a great dog. Suddenly, he has bitten me twice in the last two weeks for giving him the command ‘Drop It’. The first time it was a piece of roadkill. The second time was over a dryer sheet. He has not drawn blood but marked me on the forearm & hand. I have spent hundreds of hours working with my dog, not just training, but walking swimming & other fun stuff. I am afraid for my grand kids and I don’t understand him suddenly turning on me. I don’t want to put him down as I love him very much but won’t have a biting dog. Please help!
Answer: I sympathize with your situation as you obviously love your dog very much and feel trapped by what to do. Allow me to give you my insight.
I highly doubt that this behavior is ’sudden’. The manifestation of his behavior happened suddenly but I would bet that there have been subtle signs for some time that perhaps you didn’t recognize.
I would need numerous details to be able to give you an in depth response but there is one thing I can be sure of without further information. Your dog suffers from a lack of respect for you. A dog that has respect for his owner would never do the behavior you described. So the solution for you comes down to gaining proper respect and dominance from your dog.
Again, I don’t have all the details but I run across situations like yours quite often. The situation is that the dog, for the most part, is an obedient dog. The dog also has a big problem with dominance. The reason being is that the owner has taken the wrong approach to training. In most situations like this I find that the owner has done training based heavily in treats or ‘purely positive’ methods. The end result is a dog that is quite obedient out of pure conditioning and rewards. He is obedient because it suits him and because his owner doesn’t actually challenge him. The moment, though, when the dog feels challenged enough (in this case when he didn’t want to give up a tasty piece of roadkill) he will then exert his dominance.
Treat training or strictly reward based training will NEVER earn the respect of a dog. When people do this they are essentially ‘paying’ the dog to be obedient. This works great in a human system but does not work well in a canine system. Dogs in a pack aren’t obedient to the alpha because he pays them. They are obedient because of respect.
Now, obviously I have made a big assumption here. I don’t know how you have gone about training your dog. Once thing I do know, however, is that it has not earned the respect of the dog. Training does not need to be harsh. Training should have a balanced mix of corrections and praise, though. Praise for good behavior and corrections for inappropriate behavior. Training in this style will help earn the respect of your dog. Respect equals no aggression.
Good luck.
Check out my message board
Comments (0)I am writing this post to point my readers in the direction of my dog training message board on this website.
I am a fan of message boards. I have met people, learned new ideas, and come across new styles of dog training when reading dog training message boards.
My hope is to be able to provide an arena for dog owners and trainers to talk and converse about ideas and methods. My message board covers such topics as obedience training, behavior problems, pet health, dog trainers, and more.
So check it out and contribute. You can get to the message board from the link in the top, right hand corner of any page or you can click here for the dog training message board.
Weimaraner puppy question
Comments (0)This is a recent question from a reader of my website:
Question: I am getting a Weimaraner puppy, 10 weeks old. We have two adult Dachshunds. My question is, should I crate the puppy in the same area as our Dachshunds sleep? They are not in crates, they sleep in our utility room. I would like the puppy to some day stay in there as well, but we are going to crate train it. I just did not know if the puppy would get upset seeing the other dogs loose in the room and it is in the crate?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Answer: This is a question I receive quite often about crate training the new puppy when there is an adult dog in the home.
There is no formula or right or wrong way. What I tell dog owners in this scenario is to put the crate where you want until it doesn’t work. What I mean by that is that if you want the puppy to eventually sleep in that room start the crate training in that room and see how the puppy does.
- Does he scream, cry, and bark as he views the other dogs? If he does let it go for a few days. If it continues beyond that you may want to try changing the location of the crate. Changing the location of the crate shouldn’t set you back in the long run with having the puppy sleep in the utility room. The idea behind the crate is to condition the puppy to calmly sleep through the night. Once the dog understands that concept very well it should be a simple task to apply that understanding to your utility room.
- Does he learn to calmly be in the same room as the loose dogs? If this is the case you don’t have a problem. Like I said, there is no right or wrong way. Often times there is no harm in experimenting with your dog training efforts and seeing what works best.
Good luck!
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