Using Dog Crate to control your dog indoors

By Kodichukwu Okonkwo, DVM | September 4th, 2018




Crates for dogs are not popularly used by dog owners until there is a need to ship their dogs to a new location by air. Due to the nature of this crates, it is easy to dismiss the idea of keeping an indoor dog inside it. The fact remains that some dogs require some restraint when there is a need to clean up the house when a visitor that has a phobia for dogs visits you and other important reasons.


In my own case, Peach my former dog, the Pug, goes to work with me every morning using the crate. Any time I lower the crate she gets excited and jumps into it and lie down inside waiting to be opened at the clinic. In fact, the sight of that crate is a joy to the dog. The day she destroyed my expensive watch was the day she saw a different side of me. She ran into the crate the moment she saw my angry face and the heard the tone of my voice.

I thank God she went out of sight because I may not have spared her. She now learned to hide inside the crate anytime I come back home, especially when I didn’t take her to work with me. She does that but will eventually tiptoe to see my face and if she gets a smile she will jump on me to play but if she gets a frown she runs back into the crate. If I ignore her she will walk pass towards the bed and just climb and sleep.

I soon started associating the ‘crate-hiding’ with the word “inside”. Any time I say inside she runs into the crate and remains there until I call her out. Sometimes she checks to see if she is allowed to come out by coming towards the door and staring at my face.

Because I always send her to the crate when I have visitors she first greets the visitors and retires to the crate. When I allow her to come out she stays at a distance looking at each person that speaks during conversations. Sometimes she can stay there for very long.

When she does something wrong, I send her into the crate and make sure she stays there for long. I had one rule and that is never to hit her when she enters the crate. She sees the crate as her place of refuge. This made it very easy to keep her there whenever I wanted. When anyone is sweeping or cleaning up she runs inside due to my constant use of the word “inside” when cleaning up.

I have tried this same technique with other dogs I got after I sold peach and it has never been easy but they eventually learn not as good as Peach. Peach reads my mind from the look on my face and the tone of my voice but most of the others just want to have their way whether I’m angry or not. Sometimes they respond to the tone of my voice but soon they get on with their struggle to be free. Most of them were already adults but Peach came as a puppy and she knew I loved her and will just obey.

I have helped some of our clients adopt this method of restraint although some of them find it discomforting at first due to the resistance from the dogs and the cry from them. Some of them will want to lock the dogs forever or for too long that they end up urinating inside the crate which is not the idea. The idea is to help the dog own a place devoid of disturbance. Placing some soft bedding inside the crate also helps. Giving them treats inside the crate is another way to encourage them to accept the crate.
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    Kodichukwu Okonkwo, DVM

    Founder of Fairvet Animal Clinic Ltd since 2011, studied at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. He is well experienced in small animal, large animal & poultry medicine, and also skilled at zoo medicine. He loves animals and builds both professional and personal relationship with pet owners in order to sustain a good interaction with pet and animal owners, coupled with His great skills in programming; he brought about www.fairvet.com which he personally built from scratch.



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