Puppy Crate Training Whining is Heartbreaking

Puppy crate training and whining are often seen as simultaneous situations. You put your new puppy in his crate and he whines until you let him out. You wonder if he will ever stop whining or if you will ever get a good nights sleep! It doesn't have to be like that. You don't have to have your heart torn in two because you feel like a cruel human locking your puppy in a cage.

You may have heard the buzz words clicker training or positive reinforcement. This concept of positive reinforcement gets all sorts of strange responses from dog trainers. All positive reinforcement means is to reinforce the behavior you want. You can get pretty technical with the language behind those words (dog behaviorists do it all the time), but it doesn't change the fact that positive reinforcement means reinforce good behavior.

Here's an example I love cookies. Peanut butter and chocolate chip are my favorite. I hate dealing with paperwork and I have this huge pile of paperwork on my desk that stares back at me everyday. I made a little deal with myself. Every time I go through 25 pieces of paper in that pile I get to eat a cookie. After doing that for a couple weeks I started to change the way I saw my pile of paperwork. Instead of looking at it like a huge pile of stress it became a way for me to get a little cookie break in my day.

Okay, so I could really put on some pounds handling every situation that way. That's why there are other ways to reinforce behavior.

Example Two Your husband gets home from work, grabs a beer, and plants himself in front of the television. This bothers you. You'd like to have a conversation with your husband when he gets home, but he has checked out in front of the TV. You could yell at him, but yelling doesn't make him want to have a conversation with you. Instead, you could say Honey, I love you and I acknowledge you for working hard today. Do you think we could set aside some time to chat tonight? I miss talking with you. That conversation reinforces your husbands hard work, respects that he needs to decompress, and reinforces your love for him. The result is him having a conversation with you instead of checking out in front of the TV all night. That is positive reinforcement.

Your puppy can't speak human. That is why you can't have the above reinforcing conversation with your puppy. Coincidentally, you don't speak dog so you must figure out another system of communication with your puppy. That system is called shaping. Shaping behavior. Humans shape behavior all the time. When a child is screaming in the grocery store for candy, frazzled parents want to change that behavior without buying the candy bar. When your boss gives you a bonus for making the company extra money, he has shaped your self esteem.

Back to puppy crate training and whining. You want to shape your puppy into accepting the crate without too much whining. You could try locking your puppy into the crate with treats, but once the treat is gone your puppy will whine. In that scenario your puppy hasn't learned anything, except to eat kibble. Instead, take your puppy's breakfast kibble and play a game of only letting your puppy have a piece of kibble when he stands inside the crate. You will see how quickly your puppy will wander into the kennel waiting for a piece of kibble. Don't lock your puppy in the crate yet - or he'll start whining.

Do the puppy crate training game two or three times a day Now grab a toy that your puppy really likes. Play the kibble game. When your puppy goes into the crate offer him that favorite toy to chew on inside the crate. Shut the crate door and let your puppy play with the toy as long as he is interested or seems comfortable.

Puppy Crate Training and Whining Before your puppy whines, let him out of the crate and ignore him for a few mintues (you don't want to reward him for being out of the crate by petting). Don't be mean, just open the door and let him come out of the crate on his own. Only allow him to have that special toy inside the crate. Dr. Ian Dunbar suggests tying the toy inside the crate so the puppy can only have it while inside the crate. If your puppy has lost interest in the toy inside the crate, don't let him out unless he is QUIET. Pretty soon your puppy will figure out that in order to get that particular toy he has to be in the crate. Pretty cool!

Two things are happening here. One is that your puppy is discovering the crate by finding treasures inside the crate. The second is that once your puppy is inside the crate he discovers his favorite chew toy.

Here's the thing. It takes a lot longer to write about this than it does to actually teach your puppy to enjoy his crate. The reason I have some human examples is simply because I want you to understand the philosophy behind this training. You can apply this technique to all aspects of training your puppy, not just crate training and whining behavior.

I almost forgot. What's the trick to stopping your puppy from whining? Short training periods. Most whining is simply because you have just locked him in the crate without giving him something positive to do once inside the crate.

Reinforcement is not good or bad it's just reinforcement! Behavior is the description of what your dog is doing. Good behavior means the behavior is agreeable to you. Bad behavior means you don't like it. Both good and bad behavior can be positively reinforced. Bad behavior is often reinforced by accident. Think about the screaming child at the grocery store whose frazzled mother buys the candy bar. The child is now quiet - until next time they go to the store and the child wants candy!

Puppy Crate Training Whining Example You let your puppy out of the crate when he is whining and you bend down and start petting him. You have trained your puppy that whining gets him freedom (and a free massage). Petting reinforces too. If you pet your puppy when he gets scared you are reinforcing his fear. Soft talking and petting is what we do with human children to calm them, but to a wiggly puppy it often means This feels good, how do I get more.. If you lock your puppy in their kennel and yell at them when they whine you teach them to fear their kennel (and you for that matter) because he will learn that everytime he's uncomfortable in the kennel the human gets uncomfortable and starts acting all weird making loud noises. This convinces your puppy that the kennel is in fact scarey and that you are a crazy person!

I don't expect you to learn all this behavior stuff in one day. All dog lovers started as beginners! Dog trainers tend to forget what it was like when they were beginners. You are learning a new skill and your puppy is learning new skills. You are both going to make mistakes! Humans make mistakes.

What makes a great dog owner is the ability to admit mistakes and find ways to correct them. If you have accidentally taught your puppy to whine when he is in the crate then reinforce when your puppy when he is quiet and you will get quiet. You can positively reinforce any behavior you want. Sometimes it takes more creativity than other times to solve a problem or fix a mistake. So what.

More Articles