Whether you are bringing home a new puppy, adult dog or need help with poor potty habits from your current pooch, housebreaking and crate training go hand in hand in developing reliable, life long correct elimination routines. Even if you have no intentions of using a crate, or don’t know how to, prevention, consistency and a schedule are the things that teach your dog the proper place and time to eliminate. Crating is simply a tool that helps you, the owner, prevent your dog from going potty in places he shouldn’t so that you can control when he does go in the places he should. If he’s not going potty where she shouldn’t, then that leaves more room for success and rewards when he does the right thing!
Getting Comfy in the Crate
Before you can even begin to use the crate, you must first introduce it to your canine companion and help him associate it with safety, comfort and other positive emotions. This is done by first providing a blanket or soft bed inside along with a safe chew toy or two. Then, with a handful of high value treats, toss one directly in front of the open door. Every time your pup goes toward the treat to get it, mark the behavior either with your clicker or with a quick “Yep!” and let him eat the treat. After a few times of doing this, toss the treat on the inside of the crate door. He should only need to poke his head inside to get the treat. As he does, mark the behavior again as he reaches to grab the tasty morsel. Only move ahead if your dog is comfortable with the current task, and toss the treat halfway into the crate so that he must put his front paws in to reach it. Eventually, you will be able to toss it all the way into the crate so he must put his whole body in for the reward. Only then can you work on closing the door.
The first time you close the door, do this calmly but deliberately and mark the behavior of his standing, sitting or laying, whichever he prefers, calmly while the door closes. Immediately open the door back up and hand him his reward. He should be able to walk out at that point, but if he stays mark the correct behavior of staying in the crate and reward him again. As he accepts the closing of the door, you can begin marking the behavior and handing him the treat through the bars of the crate instead of opening the door. Then you can open the door after he is rewarded. This will help him associate the door being closed with a reward instead of being let out as the reward. He will choose to stay in the crate more than come out as that is what brings the most rewards.
Prevention
Now that your dog or puppy is comfortable in his crate, you can begin to use it as a tool to help you reinforce good potty habits. The crate should never be used for more than an hour at a time except for overnight when your pup sleeps. All puppies should be given a potty break in the correct place every 45 minutes to 1 hour, 20 minutes after eating or drinking, immediately after waking up, before bed time, and after every training or play session. Adult dogs can be taken out every 1 to 2 hours, but should never be given the ability to potty without you watching them. This means if they are not crated during that time or confined in some other way such as in his own room or play pen, then he must be on leash with you so that you can watch his every move. The entire purpose of the crate is to make sure your dog does not have the ability to potty while you are not watching him. It keeps him out of trouble when you are busy doing other tasks.
With this prevention comes multiple chances for your dog or puppy to eliminate in the correct place on a timely schedule, which means more rewards! As B.F. Skinner has learned in his experiments, when an animal is rewarded for a behavior then they are more likely to repeat that behavior in the future, and this is exactly what happens in housebreaking your dog! More rewards for him doing the right thing means he will choose to do that right thing more often than the wrong thing.
Punishment should never be used during housebreaking and crate training any age of dog or puppy. Doing so only breaks the trust you are working on building with your canine, confuses him and teaches him to fear you. Rubbing his nose in his own mess is not only unsanitary and dangerous as it exposes him to germs, but teaches him to fear going potty around you, too! This will make it much, much harder to teach him the right thing to do, creating a more difficult training scenario for the both of you. Prevent, reward, and set him up for success so that the two of you can live more peacefully in a clean environment!
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