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Hi! I’m Melanie McLeroy with Taurus Training for Expert Village and today we’re going
to talk about puppies. Crate training your puppy can be a very important part of housebreaking
and rearing your puppy. Now a lot of humans have an inherent abhorrence of crates because
we see them as cages. Well we’re not the same kind of animals as dogs. Dogs really
like small enclosed places. They love their little den and that’s what their crate can
become. You can use the crate for housebreaking and to keep your puppy safe and out of trouble.
Letting your pup just wander around the house and setting him up to fail could put him in
some danger and it also sets you up to get mad at him for him doing something that is
really your fault that he got into in the first place. So please consider a crate for
your puppy. Now when you’re choosing a crate for crate training your puppy, there are a
couple of different options. This is a wire crate. A lot of people really like these because
they’re light and open, they’re really nice for down here in the South and Texas
for our hot summers. There are also the plastic airline crates which dogs tend to like even
better because they don’t have quite as much room to see out of the crate. Now just
like everything else, the leash and their collar and learning their name, you need to
move slowly, don’t just put your puppy in the crate. If you have gotten your puppy from
a responsible breeder he should already be used to a crate. So what I want to do is,
little puppy, good boy, is have little Barto here, have positive associations with the
crate. So I’ll give him some treats near the crate. Good and then I’ll simply throw
a treat part way into the crate and hopefully he’ll run in and get it. So see he’s not
even going all the way into the crate yet. I do not want to immediately put him in there
and shut the door. Now I’m going to try a squeaky toy because he doesn’t see the
cheese. So see he’s thinking about it. Now since we’re short on time, let me just describe
the progression because this could take several days even up to a week. You throw the treats
farther and farther and farther into the crate then you choose something that the puppy likes
to chew on whether it’s a tasty bone that will take 30 seconds to a minute for him to
finish. Then you can close the door, but open the door before he actually finishes the treat.
You can also feed your puppy in the crate, good boy. See the idea is for the puppy to
learn the wonderful things happen every time he is in the crate. So then when you need
to leave him for an extended period of time, check out the video on the housebreaking your
puppy if you haven’t already or you need to go to the vet, you can transport him safely
and he’s as happy as a clam in his crate so that’s how to crate train a puppy.