Training Labrador Retrievers

What’s the easiest and fastest way to help acclimate your Labrador puppy to his/her crate during the beginning stages of crate training? It’s simple:

Feed them in their crate.

It sounds so simple, but it’s true. This tactic is very easy and makes “crate acclimation” ten times easier. Here’s why:

What you do immediately after you put your Lab puppy into his/her crate is INCREDIBLY important in terms of teaching your Labrador to either hate or love their crate. If, when you finally get their little objecting and squirming rear ends into the crate, you slam the door (or even worse, you tell them off because you’re frustrated at how long that took), you’re teaching your Lab something. And that something is the following: when you tell him/her to go to her crate, he/she had better run away because as soon as she’s in the crate, she’s going to hear the loud noise of the door slamming and perhaps your angry voice. That’s exactly the opposite of what you want to teach your Labrador.

So, the solution: When you finally get their little objecting and squirming rear ends into the crate, praise them and FEED them their meal. I’m definitely not saying that you should feed your puppy every time you have to put him/her in the crate, but when you first start out crate training, try only having to put him/her in the crate at mealtimes when you can feed them. When your Lab starts to associate the crate with food, he/she will run to her crate when you tell her to (assuming you teach her an easy command, which I will talk about soon).

So bottom line, do everything within your power (without fattening up your Labrador) to associate his/her new crate with food, and the crate training process will be incredibly easier.