THE IMPORTANCE IN CRATE TRAINING

As professional dog trainers in the balanced dog training community you will always hear us recommend to crate train your dog.

For puppies we recommend to get started as soon as you bring your puppy home-adequate sleep is beneficial to the brain development and growth. For adult dogs...it’s not too late to add some crate to their day-to-day. On a regular basis we get questions like:

How do I get my puppy to stop peeing on the floor? Crate train - your puppy isn’t ready for the entire

house - you are setting your puppy (soon to be dog) up for failure.

How do I get my dog to stop being reactive? Utilize the crate more so they have less opportunities to

act on a behaviour that they find super reinforcing.

How do I get my dog to engage with me more? Crate train - Build value in yourselves

How do I stop my dog from being destructive? Crate train - When you can’t monitor your dog they

should be in the crate.

How do I help my dog and their anxious behaviours? Crate train - Decompression is so beneficial in

helping relax our dog’s mind.

See where we are going with this? This can seem like a default response from your trainers to help

resolve a lot of common issues; but in reality the crate is often overlooked because we feel its cruel and

not fair to our dogs to spend pockets of the day in the crate while we aren't

able to engage with them and

monitor them. But is it really fair to give our dogs soooo much room to figure things out for themselves

through the day.. That’s like going to a foreign country and not speaking their language or getting hired

and their is no onboarding process... It’s actually an incredible tool in aiding dogs with behavioural issues

and can be a HUGE benefit in giving our dogs a more full filing life.

For those of you who just got a puppy and are conflicted on whether you should crate train... WE

HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!

Crate training our dogs is important for a variety of reasons.

1. Safety: as a professional dog trainer we have often brought clients on who have spent thousands

of dollars on their dogs medical care because they ingested something they shouldn’t have

because they weren’t being supervised... 🤬

2. Vet visits: Your regular vet visit can be a high-stress environment and can be hard on your dog.

Heaven forbid your dog need to spend some time at the vet without you; where do you think they

keep your dog?. If your dog is not crate trained, this makes going to the vet significantly worse

because they are not used to being in a enclosed space.

3. Travel: At some point within your dog's life, they will likely travel with you..Maybe not flying, but

probably driving and when these times arise, it is important for yours and your dog’s safety that

we put your dog in a crate while traveling. Travel is difficult for most dogs, and having them crate

trained in advance makes them substantially more prepared for a positive traveling experience.

If your dog is not crate trained and you are ready to get into it, here are a few tips

to help you introduce or for some re-introduce it back into your dogs life:

● Don't move too fast. A common problem we see when trying to crate train a dog or

re-introducing your dog to the crate is trying to move too fast and rushing the process. Crate

training your dog should be introduced like any other behaviuor: steadily increasing repetitions

and with clarity. Don't just put your dog into a crate for the first time and then leave for a few

hours. SLOW IS FAST AND FAST IS SLOW!

● Make sure they are calm. The saying goes, "when a calm dog goes INSIDE, a calm dog comes

OUT." It's important to ensure you're dog is relaxed and calm before crating them.