[Maltipup]

My 13 week old puppy gets anxious when he is placed in his crate. I am continuing to attempt to make his crate feel like a positive space by providing him a treat when he enters the crate on his own, only give him his Kong (filled with peanut butter) when he is in his crate, feeding him in his crate, and providing lots of toys to play with. I also have a fan near the crate for white noise.

After several attempts of luring him with food, he will usually enters the crate and appears to be calm as long as I continue to feed him treats. As soon as I stop feeding him treats he runs out of the crate. Also, if he senses that the crate door is closing he will attempt to push is way out. He does not seem to care at all about all of the "fun" items I have placed in his crate at this point and his only focus is on escaping.

I usually place him in his crate at around 10:15 - 10:45. After closing the door I place a blanket over the crate and walk away to my bedroom without making any fuss (he is in the living room, he was in our bedroom but would start barking every time we moved. Also I have 2 kids who walk loudly past our room to go to the bathroom so this woke him up as well). He usually barks for about 30 minutes before quieting down. I have NEVER let him out of his crate when he is making noise. Thankfully, once he falls asleep he sleeps through the night. I take him out of his crate in the morning before he wakes up to make sure that he doesn't associate barking with being let out.

A mistake I may have made was placing him in his crate when he became over excited (at the advice of an expensive trainer) and started nipping my kids. However, that was about 3 weeks ago and only happened a handful of times during a 1 week period. Also, I didn't notice it having any positive or negative effect on his association with his crate.

Last week we did have 2 nights in a row in which he didn't make a peep. Unfortunately, that was short lived

We thought that providing him too much exercise between 8:30 and 9:00 might be giving him a burst of energy so we tried toning down the energy in our house at night...that didn't work. We thought maybe he needed to burn off energy so we increased his activity between 8:30 and 9:00...that didn't work.

My wife wants to give up and let him sleep in our bed, which is where he seems most relaxed. I think that sounds like a terrible idea. However, we're going to be spending 3 nights over Thanksgiving at a family members house and I don't know what we're going to do if he 's barking in his crate like he has been.

 

[Canyx]

Totally normal. It will go away in a few weeks if you continue to ignore all vocalizations and only let him out if he is quiet. Don't make a fuss about putting him in or letting him out. You can further increase the value of the space by feeding his meals in there. I would recommend mixing his kibble with canned food and stuffing it in a Kong (when he's older, freezing it will help it last longer but it might be too hard for a young pup), or scattering it inside his kennel.

I also recommend practicing crate training outside of bedtime. Otherwise, you may end up with a dog who is quiet overnight but barks if he is every in there during the day and people are up. Dogs don't generalize well. Maybe try crating him when you or your family are doing something low key, like reading or playing a board game. He may bark but ignore it and sporadically toss a few treats in there when he is calm (without letting him out until you are ready).

A compromise that might help is moving his crate to your bedroom.

 

[Maltipup]

Totally normal. It will go away in a few weeks if you continue to ignore all vocalizations and only let him out if he is quiet. Don't make a fuss about putting him in or letting him out. You can further increase the value of the space by feeding his meals in there. I would recommend mixing his kibble with canned food and stuffing it in a Kong (when he's older, freezing it will help it last longer but it might be too hard for a young pup), or scattering it inside his kennel.

I also recommend practicing crate training outside of bedtime. Otherwise, you may end up with a dog who is quiet overnight but barks if he is every in there during the day and people are up. Dogs don't generalize well. Maybe try crating him when you or your family are doing something low key, like reading or playing a board game. He may bark but ignore it and sporadically toss a few treats in there when he is calm (without letting him out until you are ready).

A compromise that might help is moving his crate to your bedroom.

Excellent advice, thank you! Our last puppy was very food driven so as soon as he saw his food bowl hit the bottom of the create he was in his crate eating, while paying no attention to the fact that I closed the door. My current puppy sometimes walks into his crate on his own, but is quickly aware that the door might get shut and tries to run out. So, I can sometimes lure him into the crate with treats, but other times he isn't willing so I need to pick him up and place him in it. I assume it's better to lure but unfortunately that isn't always possible (sometimes because we're trying to leave for work and can't wait until he is ready).

My wife's theory is that if the dog is in our bed that he is relaxed, so even if our kids wake him up he'll fall back asleep. When we had the crate in our room he would wake up and bark in the middle of the night for 30 minutes because he wanted to get out of his crate.

I'm going to begin working with him earlier in the day and close the door for just a few minutes. I'm sure he'll begin barking, and it sounds like from other posts that I should wait about a minute after he stops to let him out...right?

The reassurance that the barking will eventually end is very helpful. The intensity of his barking makes it feel like this problem might never improve.

 

[petpeeve]

Instead of luring, I would try "shaping" it, with the door open. Once you have a strong willingness to go in (and stay in via duration building) you can also begin to shape closing the door.

In unavoidable circumstances when he does bark, I wouldn't wait for a minute of silence, I'd start at much lesser time. Say, 5 or 10 seconds and gradually work up from there. Waiting for one minute of silence you may find that he returns to barking at 45 seconds. However, you know your dog best and probably know his patterns and current capabilities. Stay within the boundaries of success.

 

[Maltipup]

Well, maybe I just got lucky last night, but Oliver didn't make a sound once he was in his crate. When I got home from work, I worked with him for 5 minutes here and there on rewarding him each time he entered the crate by giving him a piece of turkey. I would then continue to give him turkey if he stayed in the crate but increased the amount of time between each reward interval. After about 5 minutes he seemed pretty relaxed and I closed the door while still attempting to reward him. Unfortunately, he immediately began pushing his head against the door and lost focus on his reward. He didn't bark, and I let him out after he stopped pushing the door for about 5 seconds. (He seemed to be on the verge of barking)

It was a little harder to influence him to go in the crate on his own again. However, after about 3 minutes he was willing to try. During this round I didn't close the door but rewarded his choice to enter the crate.

At night he would not enter the crate on his own. I placed a kong in the crate with some small pieces of sausage inside of it, and I rubbed some on the outside of the kong as well. Next, I placed him in the crate, closed the door, put the blanket over the crate, and walked away.

I'm going to continue working with him for short periods when I get home. Keep your fingers crossed that this wasn't a total fluke.

 

[Maltipup]

We had a good 2-3 weeks of Oliver not barking when we placed him in his crate but it has started again. We still have never let him out when he barks, and when I let him out in the morning it's ALWAYS before he even wakes up. He is definitely tired out when I put him in his crate because usually I move him after he has fallen asleep on the couch for about an hour or so.

The last 4 nights he has barked for about 30 minutes per night before he gives up. Since my last post he is also now 20 weeks old, so I don't know if he might be in a new "phase". It seems like every post about this problem states that he will eventually learn that barking will not get him out of his cage and it will stop, but he is either not learning this or is very stubborn. I've had 2 other dogs but did not experience anything like this with either of them when they were puppies. I am beginning to wonder if he will ever be a dog that sees his crate as something positive.

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[Lillith]

We had a good 2-3 weeks of Oliver not barking when we placed him in his crate but it has started again. We still have never let him out when he barks, and when I let him out in the morning it's ALWAYS before he even wakes up. He is definitely tired out when I put him in his crate because usually I move him after he has fallen asleep on the couch for about an hour or so.

The last 4 nights he has barked for about 30 minutes per night before he gives up. Since my last post he is also now 20 weeks old, so I don't know if he might be in a new "phase". It seems like every post about this problem states that he will eventually learn that barking will not get him out of his cage and it will stop, but he is either not learning this or is very stubborn. I've had 2 other dogs but did not experience anything like this with either of them when they were puppies. I am beginning to wonder if he will ever be a dog that sees his crate as something positive.

Thanks for your help in advance!

It is normal for puppies to experience a bit of training regression in areas such as potty training or crate training or...who am I kidding, they regress at one point in just about everything! Keep working on crate games and on making it a good place, and teaching him that barking gets him nothing. Also, be sure he isn't barking because he has to potty. At that age, I would say he can probably hold it through a normal 8 hour night, but its worth mentioning.