The crate debate!

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast For some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I'd go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Pod. Welcome back. It is the podcast that aims to give you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout. It's okay, he's friendly. Max, one of the topics we want to talk about today is a really divisive topic, and I think that's, that's luckier than anything when it comes to dog training, and it's to do with crating your dog. Now it's very fresh in my mind because I saw a post on Instagram today, and it always frustrates me when I see people— people tend to have a go at people for the way they want to bring up their dogs. I'm like, just do you, whatever you think you want to do, do you. Yeah. But people seem to attack people who want to put their dogs in a crate, and they say, why would you want to put a dog in a cage? Dog trainer, please answer the question as to why you'd want to put your dog in a cage.

We'll give both sides of the argument, guys. Again, we'll always try and be balanced and then give our opinion. From the get-go, though, we are pro crate.

Have a crate in the room with us right now, in fact.

Looking right at one. Jack just let me out. So, we'll talk about the dos, the don'ts, why we like them, and then maybe we change your mind, maybe we don't, but at least we'll give you a really balanced and open point of view. So I guess in the zeitgeist, I guess the conversations around crates at the moment is, as Jack said, there's people that are militantly for it, militantly against it. Those that use them well swear by them, reckon they're an amazing tool. Generally, I think that the people who are against it probably don't understand them as well as you think. There's a lot of things that go, well, my dog hated it when I did XYZ. It was simple. Your dog probably hated it because you did XYZ. If you did ABC, they probably would have loved it. I guess we'll talk about some of the big things from the get-go that some of the biggest arguments people have against crates and people go, you know, well, if it's so natural, then why do you have to condition it? Why does a dog hate it? This and that. And my argument to that is always a couple of things. Number one, us as humans, it's completely natural for us to sleep in the dark, right? That's just— no one I know sleeps with an LED bulb facing their face.

I do.

Yeah.

Still very scared of the dark, Max, but let's please move on.

When we are kids, we start off with nightlights and the blinds open. We gradually kind of shrink that down until we're ready for a completely dark room. So, although it's natural, we have to be warmed up and acclimated to it. And it's no different to our dogs. So, although it's natural for them to sleep in a nice, tight, confined space, we have to warm them up to it. The second argument you'll get people say is, oh, it's so small. They should be able to stretch out. And I agree. I do see some people who I'm like, hey, that crate's way too small.

And I just put my hand up. The crate that I've got in the room right now for my son's dog is way too small. But I've explained the only reason I've still got that crate is because Kira just loves the bloody thing. She'd rather sleep in there than on all the other beds that are lying around the house. Yeah.

But it has to be size appropriate unless your dog insists on a smaller crate. And believe it or not, some actually do, guys. Again, the argument to that is if you let your dog escape tonight, they would sleep in somewhere half the size of the crate.

I love this argument. This is an argument I use so often and it's so true. I always say to people, if your dog got out tonight, where do you think it's going to go and sleep? Not in an open field.

Yeah.

Like with lots of space. It's going to find the tiniest little spot it can cram itself in, curl up into a tiny little ball to feel safe.

Yep, exactly right. My own example is with our dog Nelson. So, Nelson's a Rottweiler, he's a pretty big boy. And when we first got him, when we put him outside on the deck, he had plenty of options to sleep. He had a nice raised bed, he had a nice flat bed, he's got lots of cool shade, tiled shade, all these options. But his favourite one was to cram himself underneath the outdoor lounge and sleep under there because it was like 20 centimetres high and dark and cosy, and he loved it. Well, you know what, as an adult dog, he still crams himself under there. It's so tight that he has to lie down, soldier crawl into there, and it's so tight when he's in there that When he breathes, the couch literally lifts up when his rib cage expands. It is that tight and he loves it. It's his favourite spot. He struggles to get in, struggles to get out, but he's all over it. So, same, if you get a dog a nice, nicely sized crate that's appropriate for them, they will actually love it. The one element I think people struggle with is the confinement in terms of, you know, like closing them in. But again, guys, if you're going to have a kid tomorrow, you're going to put them in a cot that, you know, is escape-proof. Mm-hmm. You're going to close the door, generally with a handle that's a bit too high to For them to reach because they're toddlers. You don't want them running around the house in the middle of the night when there's chemicals and knives or trip hazards, spill hazards, all these things. And same with our dogs. Our dogs, even the most intelligent ones, max out at about a toddler's level of intelligence and maturity. So, you don't want them running around the house all night. So, confinement for a while, especially as a puppy and for some dogs forever, is just absolutely necessary. It's just one of those things. And that's a big reason why we're pro-crates, and that hopefully dispels a few of the arguments against them. Your dogs Your dog loves confinement and it's completely natural for them.

The argument I see, because when I've made this argument in the past about, you know, when, if your dog got out tonight, it wouldn't sleep anywhere, it would find somewhere nice and quiet and dark and safe where it felt secure. People always fire back with the whole, well, your dog should feel secure at home. I'm like, well, I get that. But when you first bring a dog home, this is my, was my argument with this person the other day. And I don't know why I'm arguing with people on the internet. It's ridiculous, but it's less of an argument, more of a conversation. But I'm saying, look, when you bring your dog home for the first time, whether it be a puppy or, you know, you've rescued it or whatever, it is in a new environment. Yeah. It is in a scary environment. It's not naturally just going to be comfortable and just like flop down and lie on its back and go, oh, I'm home. This is amazing. It's all a little bit much for the dog. And you can't explain to the dog, hey, you're in a safe place. I'm going to take care of you. But hey, what you can do is set up a nice, safe little spot where your dog can go off, you know, when it wants to and sleep and shut off and feel comfortable. Kira no longer sleeps in a crate at night. She's on her bed and she's quite happy. The crate is still here purely because of the fact that, as I said, she just likes to get in there during the day and you know, curl herself up and go to sleep. Yep. I think people don't like the fact that, like mine, for instance, I mean, it's a cage. I mean, there's no going about it. It's a cage. It's got bars and doors and all the rest of it. So, people also don't, I think, like that element of seeing animals in a, quote unquote, cage. Like, it's this whole sort of element of locking the dog away and, you know, and that sort of stuff.

And that's it. And definitely the restriction element can get some people offside. But we're going to talk in a moment about why it's necessary. And again, with anything, there can be too much of it. Nelson, my dog, when he's a puppy, had lots of time restricted, but otherwise he would just run himself into the ground. He's a working dog. He, you know, struggled initially with keeping still and slowing down, and now that crate's helped him with that. Confinement's just one of those things, guys. And there's actually also times when it's completely necessary. As Jack said, we both of us rarely actually enclose our dogs in a crate anymore because the crate has taught them the skills they need to possess to be left outside alone and left in the home alone and be able to chill. But there's also times when it's completely necessary. Like the other day when I dropped the key bowl from the front door area and glass and shit smashed everywhere. First thing I did was pop Nelson in his crate. So, I gave him a safe space to be while I cleaned up. Also, as well as one of my friends, Jamie the Dog Trainer, shout out to Jamie the Dog Trainer based down in Victoria. He actually did a really great post the other day about a bunch of fireys evacuating dogs from a bushfire.

Yeah, I saw that.

And there's about 10 dogs all loaded up in crates, you know, kept somewhere safe. And if they— those dogs weren't crate trained or couldn't handle being in a crate, What, is someone going to stand there in the middle of a bushfire with 10 leads? Like, no. You know, those dogs are going to have to go in those crates, whether it's, you know, a bushfire evacuation or at the vet. And it's up to you to acclimate them to the crate because it's almost inevitable that at some stage, for whatever reason, your dog's going to go in. And you can see in that photo, there's a bunch of dogs that are like, cool, I'm in a crate. I know what this is. I'll just chill out. And a bunch of dogs that are just unnecessarily freaking out because, yeah, it's a scary situation, but there's probably a lot of those dogs hadn't been in a crate in years or if ever. And we just had all this unnecessary anxiety that could have been prevented if they'd just been crate trained at some point.

So, other than that obvious reason to crate your dog, and as we've already mentioned, you know, at nighttime it's a safe place so they're not wandering around the house while you're asleep. There's things they can get into, especially as puppies. They chew on things, you know, chewing through an electrical cord and all the rest of it. So, other than those specific things, behaviourally, like I know there's a lot of behavioural issues that can be fixed. Or a crate can help with behavioural issues. I had a dog years ago that had separation anxiety, and I know from what I've learnt now that crating can actually help with separation anxiety.

Yeah, absolutely. So, crate's one of the best and most effective and most popular tools for a bunch of management and training things. So, the difference between training and management, training is where you're giving your dog a choice between A and B, right and wrong. Management is where you're taking the wrong choice off the table And sometimes that's necessary. If we're going out for 4 hours and you've got an 8-week-old puppy, you're not there to stop them making the poor decisions. And you might get home and that dog's learned to rehearse a behaviour of chewing a pot plant, jumping on the sofa, peeing on the rug, barking at the cat, etc. Whereas crate training as a management tool can prevent a lot of that. So, in terms of the— in terms of why crate training is really effective and the things that it can help you work on, things like separation anxiety, as Jack said. So, giving them a nice safe place. For those dogs to be, can just help when we go out, can make them feel a lot better. As you said, it's very natural for them to be in a nice, tight, cosy environment. So, a crate or playpen is great for that. 2, it's great for toilet training.

Yeah.

So, when you get a young puppy, you need to be able to be supervising them so you can see, hey, they're about to go, or you can catch them in the act and quickly scoop them up and take them outside, etc. But again, if you're not supervising, that dog is constantly rehearsing peeing inside. So, why a crate's really effective is If you've got a puppy, you take them outside, toilet trip, do a bit of play, and then any of those times you can't watch them, you pop them in the crate. Now, dogs don't have that much of a sense of hygiene, and this will be its own podcast topic at some point, but one of their hygiene principles is not to pee and poo where they sleep.

Don't shit where you sleep.

Exactly. Wise words to live by. If you've got a crate that's appropriately sized, your dog shouldn't want to pee or poo in there, so it teaches them to hold their bladder and their bowel. It builds up that internal bladder and bowel strength. And then when you let them out, they go outside and you haven't let them rehearse inside. It's also great for things like preventing chewing. Again, if you're going out for the day and I'll get people come to me and go, oh, we can't stop our puppy from chewing this, this, this, and that when we go to work. Okay. There's ways around it. Have you thought about crate training? Oh no, we'd never do that. It's like, well, this, you know, crate training your dog for periods throughout the day will prevent as a management strategy, a lot of these things from happening. And That's one of the biggest advantages. But probably for me, it's the, the 2 main ones, or the main thing that I'm really interested in, is teaching a dog downtime. Some dogs come inbuilt with an off switch. That's absolutely great. If you get a Whippet or a Greyhound or a Golden Retriever or a Mastiff, dogs that love to do a lot of sedentary time and sleep, those dogs will naturally power themselves off pretty regularly throughout the day because it's pretty innate to them. If you get a working line or a working breed dog, think your Border Collies, German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Malinois, Kelpies, etc. A lot of these dogs will struggle. They've been selectively bred just like Kira over the years to go. Kira's parents, they would have looked at who's got the most amount of work drive, who wants to go all day. That's her dad. And same for her mum. Who's got the most amount of drive, who wants to work all day? That's her mum. And that same question would have been asked for generations. So, by the time you get to Kira, she's come from 10 generations of dog with the most amount of drive and energy. Crackhead. Crackhead. She just doesn't want to switch off.

Yeah.

So, by putting them in a crate, it really helps with that. And if we take a bit of a deep dive into the reasons why that helps is it's first understanding that the role dopamine plays in our arousal and the role that having options relates to dopamine. So, when our dog has multiple options and choices, it creates a bit of a dopamine spike. For example, if your dog is in the lounge room, they're like, oh my God, I could jump on the couch. Or I could jump on that person, or I could chase a cat, or I could do this. If your dog has 5 or 6 really exciting options, it's just dopamine spike after dopamine spike. And it's that randomisation, that unpredictability, that uncertainty, and those crazy options that fuel our dog's dopamine. And we know this because us as professional trainers will intentionally do this in a way when we want it. It's using variable reinforcement to Teach our dog to get addicted to a behaviour we want. So, for example, if I'm doing some obedience with Nelson, Nelson doesn't know whether he's going to get 1 piece of food, no food, 5 pieces of food, or maybe a ball. He doesn't know whether I'm going to let him bite that ball or he's going to chase that ball. He doesn't know whether he's going to get me to toss the food in the air or toss it on the ground or chase it with my hand. And you can see that same building in dopamine. And it's great because that gets him addicted to training. He's like, oh my God, I don't know what's going to happen next. So when our dog has options, it gets their brain racing. That's also what's happening inside. So when we pop them in the crate and they've just got their bed and maybe a chew toy, their brain doesn't race because what are their options? I could stand here, sit here, lay down.

Go to sleep.

And it just chills them out. They just learn to switch off and it railroads them. Whereas if you didn't railroad them, you didn't put them in their crate, switching off and lying down is the bottom of your dog's list. Then it'll eventually just be something that they are just Forced to do because they've got no gas left in the tank. Yeah, power nap and they're up again. So that's, that's why We Love Crates helps with, you know, all those sorts of home behaviors and making your dog compatible with your home.

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So, all right, so, you know, I brought a dog into the house for the first time. I've decided crate training, I'm going to give this a whirl. You know, I know there's different schools of thought as to how to handle that, but it's a case of How do I get my puppy happy in their crate so they will switch off?

So, there's a few things to live by. I always like to send them in there with an empty bowel, an empty bladder, and an empty gas tank. It generally— you run into problems when you send your dog in there full of beans, full gas tank, full bladder, and a full bowel. Yeah, they're in there because they're anxious, because like, hey, I need to pee and there's nowhere to go. Yeah, imagine how you'd feel. Like, let's just say you're in an elevator, you're riding up to the top floor, and it suddenly comes to a stop. And the service people tell you, hey, you might be here for 5 minutes. Yep, cool, all good, I can hold. Let's say an hour later, like, I need to go to the toilet. 2 hours later and you're going, dude, like,

I'm gonna

pee in the corner. I'm gonna pee in the corner. Yeah, yeah, shit, I don't want to do this. That's how your dog could feel. But also as well, if your dog's antsy, if you've got to try and sit still when you're just full of beans, like, it's hard for us, it's even harder for our dogs, it's even harder again for our working dogs. So empty bowel, empty bladder, Empty gas tank. Make sure they're well exercised and toileted. That's going to make things a lot easier. And then from there, it's just about slower acclimatisation. During the day, I like to put him in there for periods, you know, 5 minutes here, an hour there, 20 minutes here, a couple of hours there. And crying is going to happen.

I was going to say, Max, my dog's crying. It's crying in the crate. What am I going to do? I'm just going to take it out, Max, because it's crying.

Yeah. You just honestly, you just got to ride it out. Some people won't agree with this approach and let them out every single time. They're also the people that I'll see whose dogs years down the track just know, as soon as I vocalise, I'll be letting out. And while that gives them some sense of comfort because the dog's got control, you'll forever have a dog that barks as well. So, for me, I'm somewhere in the middle. I'll let them cry it out to a degree, but there are exceptions when I'll let them out. So, during the day, putting them in there for a few hours at a time, I'll just put them in and let them out when I choose because I know my dog can hold to that long. Overnight though, like when we got Nelson last year as an 8-week-old pup is We weren't doing the whole night. We would actually break it up a little bit. So I wanted— I never wanted to teach him that barking and screaming and pawing at the gate would get him out when we're seeing that generally crazy frustrated response. I'm like, nah. But it's your responsibility if you're going to crate train right, in my opinion, to let them out before they get to that point.

Yeah.

So if we notice him get up and kind of stir and kind of go, hmm, and have a little whine like that, you know, that whine's not really so much to get our attention. That's just him going, oh God, I need to go to the toilet and want to get out of here. So at that moment we go down, we let him out, we have very little interaction or anything like that. We're not picking him up and cuddling and doing this stuff. It's very transactional. Hey, I'll let you out, you go to the toilet, you go back in. Yeah, sook for 5 minutes and go back to sleep. And we start off by doing 1 or 2 of those trips overnight. Eventually we only needed to do 1 overnight and then we needed to do no overnight. So during the day and overnight, if your dog's just howling the house down, you've got to ask yourself, if I've left them in there too long and I think they've got a full bladder or bowel, Maybe I need to succumb to it. But generally, if you just think your dog's over it and wants to get out, like, they just got to learn, hey, you don't always get your way. Yeah, it is what it is. You just got to see it through.

Yeah, I mean, we went through this so many times because we were fostering and we generally just fostered puppies. And I went through this so much, like, true, the night stuff as well. Like, you know, and it's very— that whole thing I learned was so important. Like, you know, you hear them just a little whimper in the middle of the night and you're like, just get up. As you said, very transactional, just get them out. You don't talk to the dogs. I would just take them straight outside, put them down on the ground. They weed, picked them straight back up, straight back in the house, straight back in the crate. Door got shut. I went back to bed and they settled and it was fine. We had instances where there was puppies that would just cry and cry and cry, but I was just like, and my wife was going, can you just get— I'm like, no, because I know it's— I know the bladder's empty. I know it's fine. It's just protesting.

Yeah.

And you just have to wait it and they will stop. They will. It's like kids cry. As we said, kids are no different. I've got 2 kids. You know, one was better sleep trained than the other, but, you know, it got to the point where our second child, it just— we put him in, he would cry, and you felt like a terrible parent. You wanted to just go in there and take him out and give him a cuddle, but you knew he was fine. He was just protesting, and eventually it goes quiet.

Exactly.

And you know what? He's the best sleeper out of my 2 kids. You put him in his bed, he settles himself, and off to go to sleep. My daughter, who didn't have that experience, is terrible at night. You know, she's always up and down. And again, I always go back to And dogs and children are very similar when it comes to raising them, you know, it's very similar.

And that raises a great point. What you described there from a behaviour standpoint is what we call an extinction burst. So, an extinction burst is when a dog or any animal or human at that point has a behaviour that's known to lead to reinforcement. So, if your dog forms a connection of going, oh, I vocalise and it gets me out of here. Cool. So, part of the process of then ignoring those vocalisations, your dog goes, well, this has worked before.

Yeah, it just gets longer and longer.

Exactly. They don't instantly give it up. You'll see the intensity, the duration and the frequency will all increase. They'll give you an increased level of effort. Now, if you succumb to that and go, I've got to let him out, that increased effort— let's say it's gone from 3 out of 10 to 5 or 6 out of 10— that's their new minimum effort level of offering.

Yep.

So they'll go, okay, Dad no longer listens to a 3, he only listens to my 5 or 6. I'll give it that. And then every time now they're doing their 5 or 6. So for an extinction burst to occur, you'll— or, you know, for extinction to happen to a behaviour, sorry, is your dog's going to try their absolute hardest before they go There's nothing more I can do. I give up. But if your dog knows they can try harder, they always will, especially if that behaviour's previously led to reinforcement. So you'll see it. You'll see them give it their absolute max and they've got to try at their max. You'll hear your dog. They'll be like, ah, and screaming and clawing and everything. And then eventually they just go, fine. And the next night it probably won't happen. So extinction burst is a huge part of it.

But what about those people who haven't got puppies? They maybe have got themselves a rescue dog who's like 3 or 4 years old. You know, and they're like, can I crate train a dog of that age?

Great question. Yeah. So, it's definitely easier as a puppy when they're sleeping 18 hours a day because they'll pass the time easier. But certainly getting an adult dog can present its challenges. With an adult dog that's never been crate trained before, I certainly wouldn't go straight away to overnights. I would start off by doing small periods during the day, 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, 30 minutes and so on and so forth.

Would you feed them in the crate?

Yeah. So, you can do things like you can play crate games, whether that's like feeding them in the crate. Putting him in the crate with like a pig's ear or a Kong or something that they're able to chew.

Yeah.

Playing also games. I have to like sniff out and find treats. There's a whole heap of things you can do to get them to start to like the crate. And I would be doing things like that before I even fully lock them in. And then once they are getting used to being locked in and confined again, really small periods just here and there. And then once they're building up to it, that's when we start to do it. All right, I'm going to leave you in here for an hour overnight, bring you out, toilet, put you in again for a couple of hours. Bring you out toilet, put you in for a few hours. And what we're really trying to send our dog the message is that, hey, I'm putting you in here, but I will get you out. It's okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And where those dogs or where dogs can run into problems is because we can't explain to them verbally. If I was to say, or if our dog could understand, hey, dude, I'll put you in here, but I'll let you out in the morning. And if you need a toilet, I'll let you out. They'll go, oh, okay, well, that's easy. That's no stress at all. But we can't verbally explain that to them. So, we have to explain that through our actions. And that just takes repetition. It's just putting them in, taking them out, putting them in, taking them out, and putting them in, taking them out, ideally before it gets scary. So, your dog starts to understand, okay, you can't explain this to me verbally, but you've explained it through your actions that you're going to take me out of here. And once they start to have that kind of message in their head and they understand the pattern, that's when they can really start to then just do longer periods overnight because they go, I've got that comforting thought of mum or dad will get me out of here soon enough.

Okay. Well, I think that's extensive unless you think there's anything else we haven't covered about crates.

The very last thing I did want to add just on crates is a lot of people will do crate— that do do crate training, well, they don't do it for say 6 or 12 months and then phase it out altogether. The reason I like to keep it going is it provides your dog that safe space. Like a lot of dogs actually miss their crate when it's gone. But second, it becomes their safe space in the sense of if they ever have an overwhelming moment, like let's just say you have friends come around, humans, And those people might also bring a dog and kids, etc., etc. If you teach people from the get-go, hey, if my dog's in my crate, please don't bother them.

Leave them alone.

Leave them alone. It's actually a really great way of preventing any aggression down the track towards people or dogs. So, a key thing I see all the time is people go, oh, my dog just one day snapped and nipped this kid's hand. My friend brought his dog over and it harassed him the whole time and then he bit it. It's like, well, you know, when we break it down, we quite often find the dog showed avoidance before that and tried to escape itself to here, took it there, and only use aggression as a last resort. Whereas if that dog had a place to go to where it figured out, hey, every time I lie in here, no other dogs come in, no hands come in and try and touch me, no one tries to do this, and I'm just left alone, most dogs will try and show avoidance before they show outward aggression and a fight response. So, keep that crate up because if you see them going in it, it's generally no coincidence. It's your dog showing you, hey, I want my own space. And I know dogs aren't as complex as us, but imagine how we'd feel if we didn't have a bedroom.

Yeah.

Just being in the house and going, I actually don't have my own space here. When your dog has that, like, they're only asking for a couple of square metres in the house, which I think we can give them. It's honestly just such a great tool for preventing that too.

And it's funny you should say that actually, because my mother-in-law has got a very old dog. So I think it's like 10 or 11 years old, little thing. And you know, Kira, she's harassment 101. She just wants to play all the time. And this dog wants nothing to do with her at all. And it came to stay with us for a little while. And I brought the little crate back out and I taught her that, hey, you go in there and I'll make sure that Kira leaves you the fuck alone. So she would instantly— and that's teaching an old dog about crates. She would go in there and I'd be like, great. I shut the door and she realized that Kira couldn't get her in there. And I would keep Kira away and she would more often than not, she'd be— she'd come out when she wanted to. And then when she'd had enough, she took herself into the crate to stay away from Kira because Kira's a terrorist.

Perfect.

So there we go. All right. Crates, obviously a very big topic. If you've got any questions, I'm sure you can get in touch with Max Down Under Dog Trainer on Instagram

or in the Facebook group Dog People Podcast.

Yes.

We'll be starting very soon.

Yeah, it's up and running. Absolutely running.

Yeah, no, it's there.

It's there. It's going. Awesome.

The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production.

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