Kennel or Crate Training Tips!

Nap time!

Training your pets proper behavior is a laborious and overwhelming process, especially for first time pet owners.  One of the challenging trainings, is letting your dogs to get used to their kennel or crates.  Luckily, we did not have difficulty kennel training Scruffy.  Partly because he was really young, around six or seven weeks old when we started training him.

 Here are the steps we did to kennel train Scruffy:

1. Buy a right size kennel or crate for your dog.  Neither should it be too small nor too big.  It should be big enough for your dog to stand, sit, and lay down.
2. Put his favorite bed or blanket inside the kennel.  This will allow your dog to recognize something familiar.  For Scruffy, we put his favorite bed in.  Puppies love sleeping.  He cannot resist not to get inside the kennel when his favorite, fluffy bed is inside.
3. At first, we kept the kennel gate open in the morning.  This will give him the freedom to go in and out as he wishes, and it will not let him feel that he is being caged.
4. Then at night, Scruffy is already asleep when we put him inside the kennel.  So, he did not resisted at all.  We keep the kennel gate closed all night.
5. We also used the kennel to potty train Scruffy.  For potty training tips, click this link:  kennel and potty training. 

Now, Scruffy is comfortable with his kennel.  We also put Scruffy inside the kennel when we need to leave the house.  It gives us peace of mind when we leave the house and not worry about any surprises when we get back.

Kennel and Potty training

When Scruffy was finally settled with his new home, we started training him to sleep by himself.  My aunt bought a kennel and put his bed in it and placed the kennel in the kitchen.  For the first few nights, Scruffy kept crying and kept everyone awake.  We have no other choice, but to bare with it and wait until he gets tired of crying.  One of my aunt's friends told us to put a small clock inside his kennel, as the sound resembles a heart beat, and to turn on the radio in a low volume and tune-in on a station that plays soft music.  These will help Scruffy feel less alone and lonely at night.  To our surprise, it worked!  Now, Scruffy has no problem sleeping by himself.  He can sleep without the small clock, but we still need to keep the radio on.  For more kennel training tips visit my post Kennel or Crate Training Tips.       

Knocking after potty

For his potty training,  we send him out to the patio on a schedule.  We let him roam around the patio and find his spot.  At first, it was difficult to train him since he does not want to be left outside.  We normally go out with him and wait for him to do his business.  Gradually, we try to leave him by himself.  When we are all at home, we leave the door to the patio slightly open, for Scruffy to freely go in and out.

Now, when he needs to go potty, he will stand by the patio door and waits for someone to open it.  We still need to teach him to call us when he is by the door.  Sometimes we do not notice him waiting, then that is the time he will accidentally make a mess. 

Before putting him in the kennel at night, we trained him to go potty since he is too young and cannot really hold it until the morning.  This way he will not wake us up in the middle of the night just to go potty.  The schedule works well for all of us.  Scruffy has different potty schedules in the morning.  First potty schedule, my uncle lets him go potty before he goes to work and puts him back inside the kennel.  Then his second potty schedule is when I wake up around six am.
 

During weekends, there are a few changes in his potty schedule.  When my uncle does not go to work, scruffy can manage to hold it in until six am.  Then if no body wakes up around that time, he will start calling and waking us up.  I am normally the one who hears his calls.  So, when I hear Scruffy, I know that he needs to go potty badly.  I remembered, there was one time that no body heard his calls, I think because we just came home from a trip the night before, Scruffy accidentally wet his bed.  When we woke up, he was crying and was on the side of his bed, trying to avoid the wet spot.  We felt really bad for him, gave him a bath and washed his bed.