12/21/2025
🐾Juggernaut Canine Jäeger🐾
Just a reminder that crate training is the process of teaching your puppy that they have a safe space all to their own. Its a great place for napping, eating, and chewing!
If your puppy can look like this in a kennel, you're doing it right! This is a great example of a puppy that is nice and relaxed in his kennel. He even chose to be in there with the door open, which is where he chose to display his toes from.
The part most people struggle with during crate training is teaching their puppy to self soothe, so starting the day your puppy comes home is setting the both of you up for success. I like to start out by placing a play pen around the kennel with the kennel door open. I'll then feed meals in the play pen, put blankets in the kennel, and put some sort of puppy pad or pine pellet box in for the puppy to be able to target an area to eliminate in. The times when I put the puppy in the play pen with their kennel are typically meal times and any other time is to give them a chew which is typically followed by a nap. This is to show them that every time theyre in the area, good things happen! And the time they do spend in the kennel area, is calm because they've spent so much time eating and chewing.
Items I put in the kennel are one hard toy, typically a Benebone, and one soft toy without stuffing.
Even if you don't use the playpen set up, you can do all of these things by just closing the door of the kennel and being sure to give the puppy plenty of opportunities to be taken directly outside to use the bathroom after being in the kennel. Afterwards, theyre ready to be out of the kennel, and again, taken immediately outside any time they've ate, drank, napped, or played!
