12 week puppy doesn’t like being left in crate

[MumsGoneToIceland]

First time puppy owner and would like advice on how to get to the point where he is happy in his crate so we can leave the room/plan to go out .

At nighttime he goes in crate fine at 9.30/10 ( can’t get him to stay awake later than that or if occasionally we do then he doesn’t sleep in any later). Wakes at around 5/5.30, take out for a wee and then put back in crate till 6 but usually cries until we get up at 6. (Have an alarm to go off at 6 near him to tell him it’s up time but not making a difference atm).. Once I get him up at 6, will then end up sleeping on me for an hour so is not as if he’s ready to start the day just wants company.

During the day, have been trying to get him used to being alone in crate and had got to about 15/20 mins with him staying quiet ( left him about 7 am to go upstairs and get ready/kids up, once or twice a day to have meetings in another room and went out for a lunchtime walk for about the same length of time each day and came back to quiet) . Now he’s crying pretty much all the time he’s left.

I know some people go straight back to work with a puppy where they could be left for a couple of hours and am starting. to feel like i can’t see a point where we could pop to town for a couple of hours etc and wonder if us being around so much has been a bad thing.

So have we made a mistake by not leaving him enough in the early days . Do we leave him to cry and if not how do we do this?

I have taken a step back in training and gone to trying to put him in his crate at random times whilst working in the same room, giving a treat for sitting with door shut and then ignoring him (working with my back to him), then giving him a treat for sitting quiet afte4 x mins , then turn back to working and leaving it longer but can’t get to more than 2 mins before he cries and am sat right by him with my back to him. Was hoping to get to 10 min gaps between treats and praise and then to start doing similar but leaving the room.

We’ve left the radio on, left him with a yak milk chew treat he loves but still cries.

Have we done things all wrong and is there a way to undo it? Starting to feel restricted and don’t want to start feeling resentful.

Thank you!

You have a 12 week old puppy who will already go 8 hours in a crate, that's little short of miraculous!

There are lots of books on how to crate train. My guess it's going backwards because you are overfacing your puppy with time in it. Go right back to only one minute with lots of treats.

Are you also teaching a settle and stay, other than inside the crate? And how is he for leaving human things alone (only chewing or playing with his own stuff)?

@Poorlykitten Can you help the OP? If not, what is the point in this? She is not doing what you do with your dogs, not everyone is the same. That is life. If you can’t offer advice for HER situation and come on to say what you do is the best, it’s completely unhelpful.

@CatsForLife my helpful advice is not to crate him but puppy proof the ( much larger) area you are going to leave him in. Simple.

My puppy never liked his crate so we got rid of it after about a week. He's 7 now and loves hanging out in his bed when he needs alone time, otherwise he just potters around us.

Never had any issues leaving him at home when we were out and above - we just left him with a couple of treats to keep him distracted.

@Temp023

I never understand this about people with dogs. Dogs don’t have”off-switches”, they are not going to stop being dogs for periods of time that suit their owners. How would you like it if someone locked you in a crate everytime you were a bit of an inconvenience?

A bit harsh but I have to broadly agree with the sentiment. None of my dogs have been crated but they were rescue dogs not puppies and had a modicum of training. I think the idea for puppies is to provide a 'safe den' place where they feel secure. This can be confining to a part of the room or using a crate with the door open but bed and toys inside. Just one other thing to add - a dog can be quite happy to be left on their own when someone is in the house even if they are away in another room and quiet. They absolutely do know whether their human owner is near or gone out without them.

I know this is a MN no, but we leave our puppy in the garden if we go out (totally enclosed, out of sight, would have to jump through at least 4 gardens to reach) and she seems happy enough. However our pup has never really had separation anxiety. We have a crate but we haven’t shut the door since 11 weeks as it just seemed a bit cruel (and v rarely before then), we used a pen then the kitchen. By choice she only slept in the crate at night, rarely during the day. Even when she’s sleeping, she shuffles round to different positions. Is there no way of giving her a bit more space than a crate - she might be happier?

Oh I should say my puppy is a hairy missus who likes the cool, not sure I would put a small companion breed puppy in the garden!

Op I remember feeling a bit like you when our current dog was tiny. He was a velcro puppy and I just couldn't see how i was ever going to be able to leave him alone to do basic errands etc. I understand your reasoning around the crate but agree with pp that you also need to think about creating larger puppy proof areas for daytime. We have a fairly open plan downstairs but sectioned off the kitchen diner as his safe area. As for being ok alone, we took the following approach which you may or may not find helpful...

Lots of practise. We put him in the safe area and then leave. We go and stand outside the front door for a couple of seconds and then come back. No big goodbyes and no fuss on returning. If he did cry or bark we would wait for a few seconds of quiet before returning. Slowly we built up so he was fine for several minutes. Sometimes he would bark for a 10 seconds or so but would then settle.
Next we tried leaving him for about an hour. Radio on quietly and a stuffed kong to keep him busy. I set up my iPad to video him so we could see what he did. He was absolutely fine! Barked for a few seconds once he realised we had gone and then finished the kong and went to sleep.
He's 2.5 now and has the run of downstairs and can be left up to half a day (4-5 hrs).
You will get there. He really is still a very little baby.

Mine is two and we used to leave her in her crate and wonder out to the garden for 10 minutes. We never ever went in whilst she was whining we would always wait for a break.

We also used to put little treats in her crate, or just normal pieces of her daily kibble so she would associate the crate with a safe space.

Eventually we started leaving her for no more than an hour then built that up to two.

We recently transitioned her out of having a crate (we did it over 6 months) because we were having a baby and we have a small house and it was good to get a bit more space back.

She is a very well behaved Labrador now! I've never liked leaving her at home alone though, the longest I'll go is 3 hours otherwise I organise for her to go to my parents (she plays in their garden with their two dogs) or a day care for dogs which IS expensive but she loves it and it's fantastic for making sure she is socialising with other dogs.

You will get there OP, but you dog is still really young. What breed have you got out of interest?

Crate training is a weird fad that originated in the 90s

They were indoors kennels (as they were known before crates were first invented in about the 1960s) weren't as popular until quite recently, as most people had outdoors ones or just booted the dog out of the front door to roam until they came home.

@Temp023

I never understand this about people with dogs. Dogs don’t have”off-switches”, they are not going to stop being dogs for periods of time that suit their owners. How would you like it if someone locked you in a crate everytime you were a bit of an inconvenience?

Well they kind of do; naps. It requires a lot of planning on the part of the owner though to make sure that the puppy’s natural nap time coincides with the time you need them to be settled.

We couldn’t leave our puppy to have free run of the house, he tries to chew everything including carpet, hard flooring, door frames, skirting boards and even the corners of walls that obviously can’t be removed. So if I need him to be quiet at a certain time, I need to make sure that he’s ready for a nap at that time, which usually requires me to plan when he has his previous naps that day so it can be a bit of a puzzle. He wouldn’t settle in his crate when he doesn’t need a nap and I wouldn’t expect him to.

He also settled much better when we’re out as he gets disturbed by us moving around and talking. If we’re in, he’ll nap for an hour but the longest we’ve left him is 2 hours and he’s slept for that time. Obviously as soon as we get back, it’s time for lots of fuss and attention.

I pretty much WFH but sometimes nip out for an hour long appointment so our morning looks like this:

7am: up, outside for wee, drink, breakfast, outside for poo (wees and poos can’t be done at the same time apparently 😂), fuss and attention.
7:30: takes himself to his crate for a nap, so I quickly get myself dressed and ready.
8am: get him up, drink, walk, play in garden.
8:55: encourage into crate with treats, put on sleep music, listen to make sure he settles.
9am: I go out to my appointment
11am: I get home and get him out for a wee, play and lunch at 11:45.
12pm: lunch time walk.
1pm: nap and so on…

We haven’t been out for dinner since the restaurant reopened but when we do, we’ll book for 8pm as he has his evening walk at 7pm and is then desperate for a sleep! DS is 12 though so can wait til then for his dinner.

If I need him to be quiet during the day when it’s not nap time then I give him a long lasting chew and he lies by my feet which buys me a good hour!

Second recommendation for Dog Training Advice and Support group on Facebook. Crate training is incremental and closing the door is the last step long after he’s choosing to go in there by himself.

I'm sorry OP but I don't think that your situation can manage with a dog, let alone a puppy. I think it is bad enough that the puppy sleeps in a cage overnight, but to expect him to stay in one for hours during the day aswell, is IMO, unfair. I don't think you are meaning to be unfair to your dog, but dogs are pack animals, and the reason why we have such a close relationship with them is probably because we are their world, they show us unconditional love and want and need to spend time with us - their pack. They are perfectly happy if their pack consists of only one human, but they need to spend most of their time with that human, or they become desperately unhappy. A bigger family will of course take some of the pressure (if you think about it as such) off any one individual, but the expert view is that no dog should be left alone in it's home for more than four hours a day at the very most. If those four hours a day, or even one hour a day, is spent in a cage where they can't walk around, never mind run, jump or play, that dog is inevitably going to become very depressed - even the poor dogs that are only kept outside, usually have a kennel to shelter in, and at least a long chain so that they can walk around a bit (which of course I consider to be totally unacceptable anyway - why get a dog if you don't want it to be part of the family). When not asleep, a dog needs to be able to move around for the sake of their physical health, and mooch around for the sake of their mental health. I am talking about any dog here, depending on the breed of the dog their needs can be much greater than that eg a husky needs hours and hours of walking and running a day, preferably in a cool climate. If the weather is hot, that exercise would need to take place overnight, with a cool place to be during the day. If given enough exercise during any 24 hour period a husky will probably sleep for most of the rest of the time. So if you don't want your puppy to be an involved and interactive part of the family, and you don't want him to be able to wonder about freely in at least a couple of rooms, say, the lounge and kitchen, then he is still young enough to be successfully rehomed. If you got him from a reputable breeder they will probably want him back, or come back to MN for advice on rehoming you pup. If however, you do still want him, I think getting an up-to-date professional dog (and owner) trainer would be a very good idea, and finding out as much as you can about training your pup not to pee or defaecate inside the home, is the bare minimum you need to do - which can entail having to take your pup outside very frequently until he learns that he is supposed to "go" outside (some pups can pick this up very quickly, others take a bit longer!) I have just remembered that I think you said that your home is open-plan downstairs, if it is then you need to accept "accidents" patiently until your pup is housetrained, no smacking him on the nose, putting their nose in their faeces, or shouting at them about it, he doesn't know yet that you don't want his waste products on your floor. When we become parents we know that we will have to spend at least 2 to 3 years changing wet and pooey nappies, luckily it is a lot quicker to train a puppy!
As a new dog owner you are not supposed to be born with the knowledge about how to treat your dog, but a good breeder or rescue centre, should have asked you where he was going to be kept - infact rescue centres should do a home visit before agreeing to you having one of their dogs - and how long he was going to be left alone for on most days. Raising a dog is a massive undertaking, but if you are a "dog person/family" the rewards of having a dog as part of your family, far outweighs all the hard work that (at least initially) goes into it. Please decide soon if having a puppy is right for your family, or not. Good luck OP.

@MumsGoneToIceland

When crate training the door should always be unlocked so that the pup can choose to be in there (or not) if you have to forcibly lock him in then that will negatively affect his welfare.

What does he have to do in the crate? What toys/kongs/puzzle feeders are you providing to make it an enjoyable experience? How have you built it up? What choices does he have?

If you're locking him in a cage with no human contact or enrichment then of course he won't like that - why would he? He's a baby dog that needs social contact. You need to train him to settle voluntarily in the crate by building up positive associations.

Have a look at these links

www.apbc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/APBC-Advice-4-Using-an-Indoor-Kennel.pdf

www.dogstrust.org.uk/help-advice/training/settle-training

You need to look into crate training. As another poster said, you are very lucky your pup sleeps for so long overnight in a crate without barking or crying.

My dog is now 8 and still goes into his crate a lot. He prefers to sleep there than almost anywhere else. The door is never closed now.

Me and DH spent a lot of time training him though by keeping the crate door open and each time he went in there and laid down rewarding him.

We also trained him to be ok home alone by leaving him for longer periods. We literally started by just going out of the front door and listening to see if he cried for about 2 minutes to start (he was just in the living room not in his crate) and building the time up

I'm boo dog lover, but I think crates are dreadful. What would you think of a zoo that locked animals up like that?
If you have a pet, particularly a dog, it will curtail your life somewhat. You may noon longer be able to do extended activities away from the house in places that don't accept dogs. You should have thought of that before getting a dog.
Perhaps you could use dog day care for times when you do want to go out without it. That way the dog is having some fun too, and not being locked away at times you don't want him.

*no dog lover!!

We have the same problem. We can’t leave him out of the crate as he chews.

Hi OP,
You will be much better off puppy proofing the room you plan on leaving the puppy in and leaving them in there rather than inside the crate - at the moment the crate means to the puppy that they are being left alone to sleep, so it could be confusing them that its daytime as well as the seperation anxiety. If you leave them in a room they will have more freedom to move and play etc, much better for leaving them alone!

@HeartvsBrain To suggest the OP rehomes because she crates is unreal. And highly offensive. Send puppy back to breeder? Er, breeders use crates! To leave a puppy unsupervised in my house without a crate would be very very dangerous. It’s open plan. I crate for a max of two hours when I need to go out sometimes once or twice a week, sometimes not at all during the week. I work from home and the rest of the time the pup has me or someone else around and can do as it pleases. I have had dogs all my life and not needed a crate longer than a few months before they can be left unsupervised. At the moment she would get into near-fatal trouble within minutes. But to suggest the dog needs to be rehomed because the OP needs to crate it for it’s own safety is just off the scale. This board does my head in sometimes. So unhelpful.

Agree. The idea of crates sounds likely to create stress. When we had our lovely dog crates were never heard of. We trained by going out and coming back in periods from ten minutes onwards. She soon got used to it and had the run of the house. So long as she had comfort so often found her on a sofa she was as good as gold. My dd has a lovely Labrador and did the same so no crate and no stressed dog.

Please don't crate with the door closed during the day - I think your puppy is doing wonderfully to sleep in the crate overnight. It needs to be a happy place so just leave the door open and let him use it as a bed during the day.

Op you will always get very polarised views about crate training on here. Leaving a dog to have the run of the house doesn’t work for every pup. The times I’ve allowed mine to do so, has usually resulted in some form of damage. I left him for 15 minutes whilst I showered a month ago to find he’d partially chewed through an electric cable which would have been catastrophic for him. At 10 months he still needs pretty much constant supervision which isn’t always possible, so I send him to his crate for his own safety. He has plenty of space to walk around, lots of chew toys, access to water and his bed is in there.

I would say though is that 12 weeks pup still very small and perhaps you need to adjust your expectations a little. He will cry and whine if he can’t be with you. You do need to work on it and build on the time you leave him. Ours will happily take himself off to his crate open it, and settle to sleep or play. Having said that, our pup still occasionally barks when left but neighbours say that he tends to settle after 5 minutes or so.

@CatsForLife I agree, it’s absolutely comical.

Mid lockdown I couldn’t get food delivery slots. NDN suggested that I take pup shopping with me as he was barking when left. Baring in mind you cannot take dogs into the supermarket, I said would they rather he was stolen from or with someone breaking into my car to get at him?

There are all manner of places where you just cannot take a dog with you, therefore pup needs to learn to be left for short periods and the safest place to leave them is in a crate. It’s just impractical to send them to doggy day care every time you need to run an errand.

[quote CatsForLife]@HeartvsBrain To suggest the OP rehomes because she crates is unreal. And highly offensive. Send puppy back to breeder? Er, breeders use crates! To leave a puppy unsupervised in my house without a crate would be very very dangerous. It’s open plan. I crate for a max of two hours when I need to go out sometimes once or twice a week, sometimes not at all during the week. I work from home and the rest of the time the pup has me or someone else around and can do as it pleases. I have had dogs all my life and not needed a crate longer than a few months before they can be left unsupervised. At the moment she would get into near-fatal trouble within minutes. But to suggest the dog needs to be rehomed because the OP needs to crate it for it’s own safety is just off the scale. This board does my head in sometimes. So unhelpful.[/quote]
Agree with this, people are just very angry in general on MN these days!