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Oh boy, the joys and tribulations of being a new puppy mom.
I have a 9 week old small breed puppy (Shichon/Zuchon). I have watched countless YouTube training videos about how to get a puppy acclimated to its crate. The set up I have now is that I have a crate that opens up into a pen area. In the pen area is her pee pad (in a pee pad holder), toys and bed. I started to feed her in her crate to associate the crate with good stuff. The crate also has her bed.
She whines, cries and basically 'destroys' whatever she can when in her crate overnight. I got her to the point that when she naps in the crate, I shut the door and then after 15-20 minutes, I open it back up.
I have covered it.
I have put her toys in there.
I have given her treats when she enters it on her own.
etc.
But she whines ALL.NIGHT.LONG. She settles down enough to sleep but it only lasts a short period of time. I would wake up to take her outside but even when she does her business, it is as though the world is coming to an end. And I keep the midnight puppy walks very 'professional'. No play time. I do ignore the attention seeking whines but I can't help but feel as though I am doing something wrong.
Are some dogs just not ever adaptable to crates? She seems to settle down much better when she is in her pen area. I work from home and when I am on another floor, she will whine for a couple minutes but quiets down after a few minutes. I have a pet cam and she is either sleeping or playing with her toys.
I get that it has only been a few days since she left her mom and litter mates. Am I being too impatient? Will she eventually get to the point of being an overnight crate puppy and be happy? And I am also concerned about whether or not I should leave food and water in her crate too because I'm so sensitive to her age and weight and hypoglycemia. She is a little over 3 pounds.
My other dog loves, loves, loves her crate. Gets into it before I even ask her. But this one -- whew.
It can take weeks to crate train. All of our dogs over 30 years of marriage were crate trained. That's I believe 9 dogs. 3 basenji's, a boxer, a coonhound that lived outdoors for 6 years with an insulated box, now 3 German shorthaired pointers.
Most will take to it straight away. Our first Basenji was the toughest because frankly we didn't know what to do. We would just play and let her romp and be with us all day and then we tried to put her in her crate at night and whoo-boy that did not go over well. If I recall we kept the crate closed when we were home because she would sneak things in there.
So here's how we do it-
We have two puppies in the house right now. They are 10 weeks old. There is a wire perimeter set up as a big 'pen' where they eat and romp. Inside the pen we placed a crate with old blankets and took the door off. Guess what? They gravitate to the crate when they're tired, snuggle and sleep. Usually from 9am-11:30 and again from 2:00pm-4:00pm and then all night when we go to bed. No crying, no howling- lights out they are in the crate. We sleep through the night and have been for weeks. This system has worked with one pup or two. If one pup make sure they have toys or something to play with. Turn a radio on nearby. WALK AWAY. Do something else. DON'T BREAK THAT.
It's 9:15am here right now. I just snuck into the kitchen and snapped these-
Carl walked out of the crate as I snuck up to take a pic.
You can see his brother still in there.
Try keeping the door off and let them gravitate to it. It's also a good idea to have that separate area set aside so you and the puppy can have that 'down time'. In no time they crate train themselves- it's their little 'den' to sleep. When time comes and they are housebroken- remove the wire perimeter and place the crate in a secluded spot and put the door on. At night close the door. They may fuss a bit but they almost immediately 'get it' that this is my sleep spot.
Unless you don't want to for some reason, I would put the puppy's crate in your bedroom. I gave this advice to another poster and the crying stopped immediately.
Puppies want to be with their people or at least other dogs. Is the puppy crated near your other dog? If not, that may help too.
I brought a 10 week old puppy home and didn't have this issue - even the first night. My other dog and cats sleep in my bedroom too so the puppy never felt alone and didn't cry. An added bonus was he would sleep through the night and I never once needed to get up to take him out. I may have been lucky in that regard, but at least he got to like his crate by it being in my room.
We've never put the crates in our bedroom after our first dog. It was the OPPOSITE reaction. She howled and cried and fussed for weeks wanting to be up with us on the bed.
We moved it to a second bedroom on the opposite end of our apartment and shut the door and it the howling disappeared quickly. Thank-goodness we were on the ground floor in an end unit and we knew our neighbor upstairs really well. She slept with earmuffs for a week or more, lol.
Once these puppies are gone we will move the big dog crates back-one on the left side of that pen area and the right side, both up against the wall. Third one in the living room. The wire pen will be gone.
You can try the bedroom thing- but we have never had a problem with the dogs having their own area. Our dogs seldomly go into our bedroom during the day and we prefer it that way.
Try keeping the door off and let them gravitate to it. It's also a good idea to have that separate area set aside so you and the puppy can have that 'down time'. In no time they crate train themselves- it's their little 'den' to sleep. When time comes and they are housebroken- remove the wire perimeter and place the crate in a secluded spot and put the door on. At night close the door. They may fuss a bit but they almost immediately 'get it' that this is my sleep spot.
This is the way I am leaning. I am going to start doing this tonight. I am probably putting more expectations on the puppy than I should be because my other dog was just a dream with the crate.
Unless you don't want to for some reason, I would put the puppy's crate in your bedroom. I gave this advice to another poster and the crying stopped immediately.
Puppies want to be with their people or at least other dogs. Is the puppy crated near your other dog? If not, that may help too.
I brought a 10 week old puppy home and didn't have this issue - even the first night. My other dog and cats sleep in my bedroom too so the puppy never felt alone and didn't cry. An added bonus was he would sleep through the night and I never once needed to get up to take him out. I may have been lucky in that regard, but at least he got to like his crate by it being in my room.
Nope, I have no problem doing that. This was going to be my next option if the open crate into pen set up doesn't work either.
The puppy's set up is in the living room and my other dog is in the kitchen, but it is an open floor plan. I have it situated, however, where they can hear each other but not see each other. My dog is still getting to know the newcomer so I didn't want to stress her out too much.
As I read these responses I think the real issue is my expectations of the new puppy. I am not ready to give up on crate training but I was just thinking ahead to other options. When we had dogs growing up the dogs always slept on the beds with us humans. As I got older I see the benefits of dogs having their own happy place at night -- and that's what I want to give new puppy.
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