What are the benefits of crate training?
Crate training can be a big help while housebreaking a puppy. That’s because dogs typically don’t like to relieve themselves where they sleep. Your puppy should naturally want to wait to pee until you let him or her out of the crate. This helps teach your puppy to know when they need to go and start controlling it better.
Crate training can also be useful while you’re working on stopping unwanted behaviors. For instance, if your puppy is chewing on the furniture, you place him or her in the crate for short times when he or she can’t be unsupervised. This way, your puppy can’t engage in the unwanted behavior without being directed not to do it.
In addition, if you use a portable dog crate, puppy crate training can come in handy when you need to take your puppy somewhere, like the veterinarian’s office. Your puppy will be used to the crate and should jump right in. You can also bring the crate along if you stay at a hotel or friend’s house. It gives your puppy a private “room” to sleep in where he or she will be comfy and can’t cause trouble.
Place it in a central room
Set the crate up in an area where you and your family tend to spend time, like the kitchen or a family room, so the dog crate doesn’t feel like an isolating experience for your puppy.
Put in a warm blanket, small pillow, and maybe a favorite dog toy or two inside the crate. You can also add a shirt you’ve worn so your puppy can curl up with something that has your scent.
Scatter bits of food or small treats around the front of the crate leading to the inside. Encourage your puppy to go in and get the goodies. It’s OK if your puppy won’t go inside at first. Be patient and keep at it.
There are many dog commands, choose a command to let your puppy know it’s time to go into the crate, such as “Kennel up” or “Go to bed.” Whatever word or phrase you pick, be consistent to help avoid confusion.
When you first start crate training, stay in the room so your puppy won’t associate the crate with you going away. Once your puppy is comfortable with the crate, you can begin leaving him or her alone for short periods of time.
Only leave your puppy in the crate for a few minutes at first, and then slowly lengthen the time. If your puppy whines, you may have lengthened the time too quickly. Be sure to wait until your puppy stops whining before opening the door, so he or she won’t associate whining with being let out.
If your puppy whines or barks in the crate, avoid scolding. You want your puppy to feel happy and stress-free when crated. Whining at night might mean your puppy needs to pee. You can take him or her out to go to the bathroom, but don’t play or engage with your puppy so you can both go back to bed more easily.
How long can a 5 month old puppy hold its bladder?
A good rule of thumb is to figure that your dog can hold its urine for one hour longer than its age in months. So, for example, a 5-month-old dog should be able to hold its urine for six hours. If you crate your 5-month-old dog longer than six hours, you are asking for trouble, according to the Pet Place website.
How long is too long in crate to leave a dog in a crate? Crate Train
The first thing to know about house training a puppy is that she does not physically have control over her muscles of elimination before she reaches four months of age. However, that is a general rule of thumb and puppies do vary in the development of their self-control so you have to watch your little one and her signals of needing to go so you can judge for yourself how long she can hold it!
A puppy has a very small stomach, an even smaller bladder and undeveloped muscle control of the sphincter. She needs a lot of help and patience to become house-trained. It should be obvious that no puppy should be expected to spend a whole day in a crate because she does not have control of her bladder. By caging her and then not walking her frequently enough, you put the puppy in an unnatural situation in which she is forced to soil her crate (her den). That interferes with a dog’s inborn instinct to keep the den clean — which means that a puppy who will do this is very likely the product of a mass production facility in which dogs are confined in wire bottom cages and never removed from them, and forced to live, eat, sleep and eliminate all in a small space.
Smaller breed dogs have smaller bladders and have to relieve themselves more frequently, so if you have a three month old Newfoundland, she is going to need to relieve herself less frequently than a little Havanese baby. Until a baby dog is twelve weeks old, she is going to need to eliminate every hour or two as long as she is awake.
One important house training tip is to keep treats in your pocket — a combination of Halo Liv-a-Little small biscuits or the freeze-dried protein — and be sure to instantly reward the puppy after she relieves herself outside. When you put her back in her crate, remember to give her another treat when you put her back in, making the whole experience rewarding, coming and going!
The older a puppy gets, the longer she can wait between walks. A rule of thumb many trainers agree upon is that a puppy can hold her urine for the number of hours that corresponds to her age in months, plus one. So an eight-week-old puppy (two months) can hold it for three hours—but that is the most time she can hold it, so she may feel the urgency to eliminate before that. Up to the age of three to four months, the frequency of needing to go out becomes every five or six hours, at the most (unless you have a toy breed, in which case you have to think how teeny tiny that bladder still is, and will always remain to some extent). Once a puppy reaches six months, she should be able to hold it as long as an adult dog: nine hours, which is a normal workday for many people.
However, aside from the issue of elimination, what about the length of time a dog can humanely be kept in a crate? One formula to estimating the length of time a puppy can comfortably stay in a crate is to calculate one hour for every month of her age, and then add one — which therefore means that a three-month-old puppy can be crated for four hours. In theory, an adult dog can stay in a crate for eight hours, but it’s hard on them not to be able to move around for that long, and mentally, it’s tough not to be so tightly confined and not have anything to do.
For more information on understanding your dog and her needs, be sure to tune in to GOOD DOGS! my radio show with co-host and trainer Babette Haggerty.