How to get started with crate training a German Shepherd Puppy. Roxanne is a four-month-old puppy. Puppy crate training exercise. This is an important part of teaching your puppy how to have good puppy manners while being in its crate.
Puppy Crate Training Tips for Beginners:
If you are having problems with your puppy crate training? After watching this video I know you’ll be doing awesome!
This is the one thing most people I know struggle with. Why we should start crate training our puppies when they are eight weeks old.
Puppy training needs to begin the minute you bring your puppy home. Crate training is part of puppy obedience training. If you’re not should how to get started with puppy training. I recommend you read this article. Puppies do better with a routine.
How long can you leave a German shepherd in a crate?
A four-month-old German Shepherd puppy should be let out of its crate every 3 hours to relieve himself and get the proper exercise and training needed. If your German Shepherd is the age of one year and older, you can leave it in a crate for up to eight hours. You should never leave a dog in the crate for longer than eight hours.
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German Shepherd puppy training video. Puppy training exercises.
Well, in today’s video, we are going to talk about crate training a German Shepherd puppy named Roxanne. Now Roxanne is three and a half months of age. An important thing about crate training, is so misunderstood and this is why so many people have bribed their dogs to go into the crate, they can’t open the crate without letting the dog break out, and bust into them. And it’s all because they never introduced their dog to the crate properly and done do any crate training exercises.
Now you can see, I’m demonstrating with Roxanne. We begin on a leash and I’m teaching her how to go in and out of the kennel calmly without a fight. And you can see, I’m opening and closing the door. We want to teach the dog just because the door’s open, it doesn’t mean come out until we invite her. Now you can see I invited her and she came out. Again, we want her to go in on command, as I’m demonstrating and I’m giving her a stay command.
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Now we want to open and close the door while holding the leash in our hand, just to show the puppy that it cannot break out until we give them permission. Now see, Roxanne broke out. No big deal. Just put her right back into the crate. Dogs learn through repetition. This is why we make it an exercise.
You can see now I invite her out. And you want to give her a lot of praise. And yes, you can use a food reward for this right now, as long as your dog did it for you without a fight. It’s not a bribe. And a lot of people ask me that.
Now again, I’m going to do this. And I’m demonstrating. And this is something that you want to do. You should be doing it regardless if it’s a German Shepherd, and you should be doing this every day.
Starting our puppy off in puppyhood, most dogs are going to spend the first 14 to 18 months of crate training, because you can’t rush maturity level in a puppy. using a crate is not a punishment. It’s there for a safe spot to keep our pup out of trouble if we cannot supervise them.
We don’t want it crashing, or bouncing out of the crate. You want your dog going in the kennel happy, and feel comfortable in the kennel. That way you’re going to prevent aggressive behaviors down the line as the pup gets older, separation anxiety, and wanting to break out of the crate. If you are an experienced German Shepherd owner I’m sure you’ve heard of this behavior before but may have a friend or somebody that you met that has these problems.
You can see me giving her a stay command. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t stepping in front of the camera. Now I’m going to go back and praise her. And I’m going to reinforce the stay again. You need to have patience and fun with this. Puppies are great. Roxanne’s a super puppy. She’s three and a half months of age. There you go. She’s breaking out. No big deal. Don’t look at this as a failure. Look at this as moving forward. If your puppy doesn’t test you, you do not fix it. Remember that. Okay, so we just do it again.
We have to win before we can stop the exercise. I recommend you start off your first week, you’re doing this twice a day. You want to be able to get your dog to go in and out of there at least seven to 10 times, and then you can build from there. Short little training sessions. You can see me giving her a stay command now. Very nice. She’s doing great. See me reinforcing it with a hand signal. I’m walking away now. Now I’m coming back in and I’m going to praise her. And I’m going to invite her out. Very good. That would be a great spot if you’re just starting out, that you could end this training lesson.
But since Roxanne’s a little advanced now, I’m going to take the leash off of her and repeat the same thing by doing it off-leash because I want her to go in willingly. We don’t want to force a dog or have to drag a dog in the crate. We want a dog happy in the crate. Very good. I’m going to praise her. Now I’m inviting her out. I use a lot of food rewards when I do this. A lot of people don’t know how to wean a dog off of food.
You’ll learn more about it in this video. I have other videos of Roxanne that you’re going to see. I was hired to train her and socialize her along with doing her crate training for the people because they just physically didn’t have the time with their work schedule. This is what people want to hire professional dog trainers for. And I do this all the time. I’ve raised so many German Shepherd pups because I bred many of my own puppies.
German Shepherds are my favorite breed. Very nice. You can see I’m reinforcing it. If she breaks out, no big deal. Remember, she’s just testing. I’m going to put her right back in and just give her a stay command. No yelling, just tell her to stay. And I’m going to gradually build it. Remember, she’s testing me now. Now I’m going to shut the door, open it, and let her know that this is the real deal. You see me reinforcing the stay right there.
Now I invite her out. So there you go. Nice. I’m going to end this exercise with Roxanne now. Now it’s your turn to go and practice with your pup, watch this video as many times as you need to. Please share it with friends and family, anybody that you know needs this help. I do appreciate it, I wish you the best of luck. Until next time, I’ll see you all in the next video.