Firstly you must ensure the crate is a safe and pleasant environment for your puppy or dog and must NEVER be used as a form of punishment or prison. Your K9 companion will grow to love this area and it is great for when your dog requires a little 'me time'
The crate can help immensely when you are toilet training a puppy as it helps both you the owner and the pup to get into a routine. Initially your puppy will only be able to last a couple of hours between trips to the toilet, this may vary depending on the age you acquired the pup and could be as short as 1 hour. Please note that young pups will be unable to go the whole night without a trip to the toilet so a late night visit and very early morning trip will be required for a little while.
First things first, what crate to purchase ?. There are lotson the market with a variety of colours and sizes, the crate you purchase should be large enough for the dog when fully grown taking into consideration they should be able to lay down, stand up and turn around in comfort. It is highly recommended that a divider or separator is installed into the crate initially to reduce its size and ill explain why in the following paragraph.
Puppies will from time to time have an 'accident' in the crate, this will be encouraged if the crate is too large. The puppy will be happy to mess in one corner and sleep in the other !, to avoid this a divider is installed to make it large enough for puppy to lay, sit and turn around. The crate should be comfy so bedding will be needed and a few toys to keep pup amused, possibly look at blankets for bedding initially so if pup does have washed and dried without to much fuss, if the bed is a dark colour or has lots of filling it maybe difficult to see if pup has had an accident.
The pup will soon show you signs of when they are about to go by sniffing or circling. Don't dismay if pup does not go when you are in the garden, simply take pup back to the crate and then try again in 10 or 15 minutes. When the pup does go to the toilet in the correct location really praise the dog with a high pitch tone and lots of excitement. Eventually pup will associate the garden with toilet time and be able to last longer in between trips.
Now there are some basic points to consider when house training a puppy, they will need to go to the toilet after playtimes, feeding, early morning and last thing at night. Don't let the pup drink lots of water late at night so maybe after the last feed pick a time for a last drink and stick to this routine.
Pups need to learn bladder and bowel control and this could be some time so please be patient with your new addition and slowly increase the time the pup is left in the crate and with time and patience you will successfully house train your puppy.
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