News / June 5, 2025

How To Crate Train Your Dog

Crate training aligns with a dog’s innate denning instinct, providing a secure and comfortable space they can call their own.

The Benefits

The crate gives the dog a cosy and safe place to retreat and provides you with a way to keep them safe and out of trouble. Puppies explore the world with their mouths and can be very mischievous. This crate will help them settle and give you peace of mind.

Practically, crate training is a good idea as it is something that life might force onto your puppy. An example of this is staying at the vets or being transported in a car. If your dog is comfortable with a crate, they will find the process much less stressful.

The Basics

The best way to crate-train your dog is to let it happen relatively organically over time. Unless you can absolutely help it, don’t just put your dog in the crate and hope for the best. Make sure the crate is an adequate size and situated in a quiet area, ideally near a door that leads to their toilet area. A few yards less can be the difference between success and failure with toilet training, and having their crate near an external door will make the process a lot easier.

Things to remember:

Make sure the crate is a suitable size for your dog.
Make sure it is situated in a quiet area
Put comfortable bedding and chew toys in the crate
Leave the crate door open

Where To Start

Engage your dog in a happy but calm manner, lure and throw treats in the crate. This should be done little and often. Don’t try to keep your puppy in the crate. In and out is perfectly fine at this point. There is no pressure at this stage.

Always finish these sessions before your dog grows bored.

In between training sessions, feed your puppy in the crate by bowl or hand. If your dog falls asleep somewhere, pick them up and put them in their crate, leaving the door open.

When you put your dog to sleep in their crate, add a high-value treat near them. That way, when they wake up in the crate, they associate it with ‘magic’ treats. Also, do this if your puppy is falling asleep. Put them in their crate and leave the door open, and add a treat once they are asleep.

Randomly throughout the day, when your dog isn’t watching, place a treat or new toy in their crate, this way, they can find it later when they take themselves there, encouraging them to go to their crate.

Training Progression

After a week or so, change your training sessions so you add closing the crate door for a very brief time. Once they are used to this, move on to leaving them in the crate for random but slightly long periods.

A good idea at this stage of training is to put a toy filled with treats in their crate. When you close the door, don’t engage with them. We want them to learn to focus on the toy in the crate and not on us.

Continue to develop this game so your dog can be left for longer periods of time.

When returning to let them out of their crate, don’t overly praise, fuss or reward the dog. Everything about the crate is calm, including coming out.

You can use reverse psychology with this training. Put a treat-filled toy into the crate some time before you need to go out and lock the dog out of the crate. By the time you are ready to leave, they are desperate to get into the crate and to the toy.

To reduce the anxiety of your dog waking up in a locked crate, do this training exercise. Put your sleeping dog in their crate with a treat and close the door. Keep a lookout for when they start to wake up. Wait for them to eat the treat once they are awake and whilst they are still calm and drowsy, go and open the crate.