Crate Training or Building a 'Dog Cave'

By and I are super fans of the Crate for dogs. Besides the fact that it harkens back to the wild where dogs like to be snug and confined in a safe space, it also gives her a place in the house that is hers alone and it makes her so happy to be in there! So when I was looking around the web and came across a woman having problems with crate training her dog. I realized that I hadn't posted anything here in Ages!! This is sad since every day with Lola is filled with not only moments of hilarity but also moments full of learning and education that By and I should be sharing more often! So, here's how we crate trained our pooch.

Now it took a while for all of this work to pay off, and we had to contend with parents and some friends who thought we were cruel and called it a cage and said "poor doggy!!" But this is because most people think of their dog like a person. She may occasionally act like a like a person in a little brown suit, but we know she's still a dog, and we were committed to doing what is best for her as a dog - a spoiled, but adored dog! The result is that now she ADORES her crate and can spend up to six or seven hours in there easily. Plus whenever something scary happens - like the vacuum cleaner or the blow dryer - she goes right to her crate where she knows nothing can hurt her. And we never force her out of it once she's in there.

We initially kept the crate in the living room, and started training by leaving the door open but putting treats inside all over, tucked under blankets and under the mat, so it was fun for her to go in and try to find them all. Whenever she would come out and left the room, we would bury a few more treats in there. We put in toys and a water dish that attaches to the bars near the door. So within only two days she associated the crate with fun and tasty treats. Then we started closing the door, but giving her treats that took longer to eat - rawhide or ice filled with bits of frozen chicken. And we had her in there overnight right from the beginning - but one of us would sleep in the living room near the crate - I know, a commitment, but long-term it gives you a far happier pooch!

Once she was OK in there when one of us was nearby, we started leaving her to run to the store, etc. Always with a few treats - but not rawhide. (If we're not home we don't leave rawhide in there. Rawhide can be dangerous if she chokes on a piece! But I'll do another post on that...) We even keep certain treats - Innova biscuits - that she only gets when she goes in the crate. Now when I pull one out, she RUNS into the crate!

Hey, no one ever said having a dog is easy!

Supercross Lola Style! Lola is in second place but coming on strong!

Ice Dancing Lola Style

Who remembers this much snow on the East Coast south of Mount Washington? Really!?! Lola has been loving it of course. She has her own version of the New Jersey Winter Games 2010:

Biathalon. Usually involves bounding around the backyard and snow drifts. Then every 5-10 minutes instead of whipping out her hunting rifle, she has a sniff break. Points awarded for finding edible treats in the snowdrifts.

Ice Dancing. This could be considered pairs ice dancing as I struggle to control her on the icy sidewalks (thanks local residents and university maintenance who clearly do not follow Mr. Rogers' maxim of neighborly love). Of course Lola and I lack the insensitive Aboriginal costume or the flaming pants from "Blades of Glory", but our triple sow-chow is off the charts.

Nordic Combined. Again the standard bounding around and then midway through the bounding, she finds a fallen branch seemingly 45 times the size of her fluffy frame. Apparently, points are awarded in doggie land equal to the size of the branch that you drag across the snow.

Snowboard Cross. This typically happens during the busy afternoon rush on the sidewalks of the local apartment complex or as Lola and her friends Willa and Django battle for control of the thrown tennis ball at the local dog park.

Curling. Today Lola decided that she wanted to carry pieces of ice around the backyard. Canada, you may have invented curling but you are going down...WOOF WOOF!

Beginnings Are Furry And...

Arriving a few minutes late at Newark International Airport, Byron and I felt a bit illicit. After all, who had ever heard of shipping a dog through American Airlines? At least with children they had those tags around their necks that said "Unaccompanied Minor" and someone held their hand. As far as we had been told, Lola would be arriving in a crate and we would pick her up in an office somewhere in the bowels of the terminal.

Byron and I decided to get a dog sort of haphazardly because of the confluence of housing - we were placed in the only graduate student housing that allows pets - and Byron's long hours in the city each day where he commutes to teach middle school history. I had felt for a while that there was a creepy emptiness to the apartment - a one story tract style group of three apartments stuck together - and longed for another presence that would remind me the world exists beyond my graduate school heavy mental lifting.

Of course, being the one to consider future effects, Byron worried about time management on our parts and the expenses. I assured him we would figure it out, as so many of our friends in the grad school community were doing, and things would be great! He consented in part because it was true, he does spend long hours in the city and maybe something that was happy to see me when I came in would be nice.

Both Byron and I had had dogs growing up. Byron's parents had a mutt named Scooner and had in the last two years said goodbye to a 13 year old golden retriever named Misty. In my house, we had short runs with two dogs, a chocolate Lab named Chloe, and a chocolate poodle named Coco. I say short because my brother and I were disinclined to take care of them, and neither lasted more than a year or so. The reasons were of course more complex than that, but as Byron and I were soon to find out, the habits and behaviors of our youth would not do with a dog in our small apartment and in a community full of children and families!

I have allergies that are easily ruffled, so we knew that we had to have a so called "hypo-allergetic dog" with a poodle being my choice. Byron showed me pictures of fluffy silly stupid cuts on poor dogs being paraded around Dog Shows and declared he wanted no frou-frou dog! After digging around and finding pictures of Labradoodles, in their curly, floppy, but non-shedding coats and gentle eyes, Byron saw where he would be ok being seen in public with a dog like that! Thus, clutching our Barnes and Noble dog guides, training regimines, and advice on proper walk technique, we scoured the internet looking for a dog to adopt.

In New Jersey Labradoodles are apparently something you should consider the same way you consider the purchase of a used car or a cruise to Tahiti, because the costs were insane with dogs in the coco colored variety we sought running as high as two grand. So it was with trepidation and not a little fear that we sought breeders in other states. One heartbreaking adoption fell through with a breeder in Tennessee, but now we know it was because we were really waiting for Lola...

In beautiful pictures the breeder sent to us, Byron and I drooled over her rolling in the grass with a soccer ball, playing with her siblings, playing with the breeder's children, and glowing with cuteness! With warnings from the Humane Society ringing in our ears - Never Buy a Dog You Haven't Met The Parents Of! - we asked to speak to the breeder's veterinarian and previous happy adoptive doggy parents. After many happy returns and investigative work on our part, we bit the bullet and sent the deposit and knew we would need to be at Newark airport at 3:40pm... we were there at 3:45pm.

In the parking lot and elderly couple passed us by with a crate and a puppy on a leash. Excited and nervous we asked them about dogs shipped and if they felt it as weird an experience as we did. Laughing they said yes, but that their dog was fine! Navigating to the office to pick up Lola's crate we were shocked to discover another three dog crates waiting. Lined up along one wall, the office looked like a doggy jail. At least until we peered into the crate and saw that little face! Taking her down to the parking area, we consulted our notes, spread treats on a blanket in front of the open door of her crate, and sat a few feet away to wait.

Eventually her small curly brown head emerged and tentatively approached us. Feeling a sudden and overwhelming sense of panic and lack of confidence, I could not pull her immediately onto my lap. Trying to imagine how I was going to avoid making a disaster of this little life I knew we had made a mistake. What had I been thinking! I could barely keep myself in clean socks and t-shirts, how would I keep this little life from being a miserable mess? I don't know if Byron felt the same way, but his natural ease and effortless ability to exude calm eventually calmed me down as well. And wrapping her in a soft towel, we headed for the car and home...