Once the puppy is used to the crate, praise him when he enters the crate and pet him. Try to get him to associate positive things with the crate, don’t push, pull or force him into it. At night, you might need to force him in the crate and shut the door. The crate should be placed next to your bed or in a place where the puppy won’t feel separation anxiety.

In the beginning while you’re still crate training your puppy you will want to crate them for short periods of time while you are at home with her. This will decrease their anxiety and will prevent them associating you leaving them with them being crated. In fact, crate training is best done when you are in the same room as your dog. Over time, slowly, get her used to being left alone in the crate. Remember you want to associate positive things with the crate, and to make the dog feel like the crate is their safe zone.

If your puppy is still having accidents in the crate after the crate training, be certain that they have gone just before being crated. It might be that the crate that you are using is too large to discourage your puppy from soiling it. The crate training works on the principle that the dog will not soil their sleeping place, if the crate is too big then the puppy can still soil the one side and sleep on the other. If the crate you are using is too large, try placing a box inside the crate to make the crate a bit smaller. Dogs rarely soil their sleeping spot, if they do, there could be a number of reasons:

• The puppy is too young to have a lot of control of their bladder and you may need a training program.
• The puppy could have a too poor or too rich diet, or their meals could be the wrong size.
• The puppy could have worms which cause diarrhea.
• The puppy has gaseous or loose stools
• The puppy or dog is having separation anxiety
• Or another common cause is that puppies who were kept in small cages, like in pet stores, are forced to defecate in their sleeping area which tends to make them harder to housebreak.

If you’re getting the crate for a puppy, the crate should be big enough to last them their whole lives, so getting a decent crate now is probably a good investment. You may want to get a bigger crate now and put a box in it or a grid to make it smaller. The idea is that the puppy doesn’t has enough room to stand up and turn around, but not so much that they may decide to go putty in the crate.

Some common mistakes:

• Forcing her to go inside the crate when she doesn’t want to.
• A crate that is too small so that she is restricted
• Having a bleak interior.
• Letting the puppy spend too long in the crate
• Using the crate as a place of punishment

All of these can make a puppy complain when they are confined in the crate, and may even injure themselves trying to get out. Spending too long in a crate may force a puppy to defecate in the crate, which will cause them to hate the crate and act out their grief by barking, biting their owners, licking the inside of the crate, or eating their own excreta.