 Crates are not punishment,
they are your dog's sanctuary and they have many good
uses. They are the safest way to transport your dog in
vehicles. Also, when your dog goes to the groomer or has to
stay at the vet your dog will need to be crated. It is best to
teach him beforehand that resting inside a crate is a positive
experience.
In
addition, the best way to "correct" unwanted behavior is
to "prevent" it from happening in the first place. A
crate is indispensable in helping to train your
dog.
Our dogs, rescues included, must
"Earn Their Honor" before they are allowed full use of our
home. This means that until they have demonstrated that they
can be trusted not to make mistakes, they are placed in an area
where mistakes cannot happen whenever we are not able to supervise
their actions. This is where crate training comes in
handy.
Whenever we cannot directly supervise a new
dog, we place it inside a crate or outside briefly in a kennel
run. We don't allow him access to our yard when we cannot
supervise him because he might dig holes or destroy plants and
outdoor furnishings because he has not yet learned that these are
undesirable behaviors.
We always
offer appropriate chew items for them to relieve stress and
have many toys strewn about the floor. We stuff bones
and Kong toys using unsweetened peanut
butter, or raw ground meat, or dog biscuits and
freeze them.
When we leave the house, each dog
goes inside its respective crate with one of these very special
treats. Dog's that have "Earned Their Honor" are trusted to be
loose in the house while we are gone and they also receive one of
these special treats. The dogs receive these treats only when
we leave the house. The
chew objects are gathered up, washed, stuffed and placed inside zip
bags and back into the freezer when we return. Because the
stuffing is frozen, it keeps the dogs very busy and takes quite
awhile for them to lick out all the goodies.
The dogs are supervised
constantly and when we cannot "watch" them, they are put outside in
their runs or crated indoors. New dogs must be leashed to us
or drag a leash around the house so we can quickly get its attention
if it starts to do the wrong thing. Gradually a shorter and
shorter leash is used until the dog has "Earned Its Honor" not to
wear it. If the dog reverts to doing inappropriate behaviors,
we simply clip the leash on the dog until it "Earns Its Honor"
again. We never punish a dog for making a
mistake. We just redirect it to something that we can
praise the dog for doing and resolve to watch the dog more closely
in the future.
Check out these two
videos for crate training tips: PetVideo.com and PetVideo.com | 
