Dog Crates & Dog Cages Blog

A dog crate is either a plastic or metal wire cage for your dog to sleep in or be in while you are away, the dog crate helps give your dog a secure place to live while in your home and a place to retreat to when things get a bit to hectic as they do in many family homes today.

Dog crate training is a very popular and effective technique for teaching your dog right from wrong; this method includes teaching rules of eliminating, sleeping arrangements, and keeping your dog from being destructive when you are out amongst many other benefits.

Dog Crates can be very useful Dog Training Tools

To crate train you must choose a correctly sized crate that your dog or puppy will be able to grow into with time and they will not be too cramped or have too much space. If your dog has a dog crate that is too small they won’t want to live there or go there and if the crate is too large it leads to eliminating problems.

You should make your dog feel as comfortable as you can in their dog crate; this should include putting a bowl of water with your dog in their dog crate, a nice easily cleanable blanket and put them in an area that is widely used by the family so they always feel part of what is going on.

When you are out, your dog can be closed in their dog crate to ensure common bad behavioural problems don’t happen while you are out such as chewing, biting and eliminating in the house. Be sure not to keep your dog in their dog crate for longer than about 4 hours and to let them go to the toilet on a regular basis.

Dogs will naturally not want to eliminate in their place of sleep so as you dog gets used to its new sleeping area it will want to go to the toilet only when they are let out so be sure to take them to their appropriate place for eliminating when they are let out, then reward them for behaving in the correct manner.

Always reward your dog for using the crate in the correct way and be sure all members of the family know that the dog should not be pestered in their dog crate. As long as this rule is followed then you won’t go far wrong and you will begin to notice great improvements in your dog’s behaviour immediately.