Welcome back to mccann dogs, I’m kayl mccann in today’s video. We are going to talk all about how to stop barking or whining in the crate, and I’m going to give you some tactics that you can start working on right away. So before we talk about how to fix the barking in the crate, we also want to talk about why dogs bark in the crate, because there’s actually a lot of reasons why they bark in the crate. Lots of dogs will bark in their crate because they’re bored, because they’re not so happy that they can’t just go and do whatever they want to in the house.
Sometimes there’s valid things like they actually have to go to the bathroom, or you know they need something for some reason before I start to address the actual noise in the crate. I do need to make sure that she doesn’t actually need something so before I work through this, I’m going to make sure that she’s had breakfast, which she’s had she’s, had access to water a little bit and I’m out here making sure that she doesn’t have to Have a pee or a poo that way when I actually do put her in the crate and she makes noise, I can feel confident about addressing it because she’s not actually requiring something. So this is nico she’s, a whippet puppy and we’ve borrowed her for today’s barking. In the crate, video, because we’ve heard she does a lot of barking in the crate, we’ve also experienced a little bit of barking in the crate and first things.
You go yes, good girl, but I’m going to make it happen. Nuts now she’s settled, which is great, but my life is not going to revolve around hovering over my dog in the crate. I need to go and do normal human things while she started chill’s out in the crate. Maybe you have your crate in your living room like we do.
So if I start moving around and she’s doing what she needs to do, I’m going to take an opportunity to praise her good girl, good quiet. If I want it, you could just use praise as well without any feeding if you’d like to good girl, good quiet and I’m just going to reinforce her for being chill as I’m busy. If you need to be multitasking, if you actually need to be helping your kids with something or somebody’s actually going to come to the door or a reallife situation happens, I wouldn’t recommend training this during that moment. I specifically came back and I chose to reward nico when I felt that she was really truly calm and settled, so I’m you know sure that I’m reinforcing the right things.
So if you have a dog that barks in the crate, I’m going to give you a potentially gamechanging tip, and that is the location of your crate. So when it comes time to have to do normal people, things like make dinner and you go yes, good girl – and you know your crate, maybe is located in the living room or somewhere that’s away from where you’re going to be spending. Now again, we’ve learned with this dog and she’s like very, like many of your dogs she’s better when she’s around us when she’s with us. So now that I have to make dinner, I’ve made the decision to move the crate to the kitchen so that I can keep my eye on her.
24 7, when you’re in your crate. I need to go and do different things, but when you’re working through it, try your best to set your dog up to make good choices, and if that means moving crate to a couple different locations in the house to make that easier. So I’m going to take an opportunity to just practice, actually removing myself from the room and taking an opportunity to reward her. If she’s still settled as I leave now, I can sneak up the door and listen, but I’m just going to start off by you know going up the door for just a moment and then I’m going to come back on reward.
Now I’m going to emphasize the just the moment part because we’re not leaving for 10 minutes and hoping that it works. Sometimes the dogs will just respond to that. That that break in your voice or that interruption, interaction with them will cause’em to be quiet. That gives you that split little second, to praise them calmly and positively for that quiet, behavior, yes, good, quiet, good girl.
A lot of dogs, though, will just bark right through or make noise through that that verbal reprimand, because they don’t really know what it means quite yet. So the second step is to then follow that verbal with some type of interruption for some dogs – just gently tapping the crate – will be all that you need to stop the noise. For a moment. Fine, while other dogs may need that leash.
On the crate, to you know, make a more significant startling noise again we’re not trying to scare or upset the dogs by doing this, we’re simply trying to distract them or interrupt them by making that noise, so that we have a few moments. I’m going to share with you guys a pro training tip now, because there are lots of dogs that are wonderful when you’re in the room and then when you leave, they make noise. They they stop right away because they’re like yay, you walked in the room, I’m excited to see you and you don’t really get an opportunity to address the noise with really good timing. Another thing you can do is use a long line that you attach to your dog’s crate.
Basically, I would just clip the leash to the front of the dog’s crate and I would go around the room to the other side. I can actually do my correction or my interruption from you know outside the room, which means the only time that she sees me is when she’s actually being quiet. So I can be reinforcing the right things, so I’m going to sneak out see what happens here. Good girl, very good so now that I’ve had some quiet behavior, I can start reinforcing this and again, I’m just going to build on the timeframe very slowly as she’s more comfortable.
If your dog’s making any noise in the crate, while you’re sleeping rather than getting up outta bed a hundred million times a night, you get attached your long line to the crate and do the same technique so for nico’s owners and for you at home. You may consider what type of crate that your dog is in dogs are very much denning animals we’re using a wire crate today, which nico seems to be fine with, but there are some dogs that prefer using a plastic style crate over a wire crate, just because It feels a little bit more denlike. Another trick that you can use is to actually cover the crate, with a big blanket or a sheet which sort of blocks out all of the noise and the distractions and the excitement sort of the same way that you would cover a bird’s cage. If you have a wire crate, I might suggest putting something along the top that extends a little bit further out so that the dog can’t pull the blanket through the crate wires.
If it’s a plastic crate. Nico’s owners dropped her off this morning for us and in terms of the actual training time, I’ve really only been working with her for a little bit less than an hour, and you could see from the start of the video how much barking she was doing in Her crate to now she’s lying very calm and settled, but you know the training really isn’t done. One thing that I noticed about nico from working with her today is that she really doesn’t have a lot of value for going in her crate or being in her crate. So one of the tips that I would send home with her parents today is to take some time to build more value in the crate by playing a few fun little games, and if this is something that you’re struggling with your dog at home as well, I Would definitely suggest that you check out this video right here.
It’s going to give you tons of tips and tricks to teach your dog to love their crate. This is nico.
