Crate Training Advice Please

Our first Beagle is now 1 year old and we got her at 12 weeks old. We never had any problems crate training her. The moment she went in her crate she'd fall asleep.

We've just got a little 7 week old boy beagle. He travelled all the way up from England in a crate without a sound. From day one he slept in his crate all night without any fuss. So he has no problem with his crate - he likes it just fine. However....

He hates to miss out on anything, and it's a real problem getting him to settle for any length of time during the day. He has plenty of supervised play time out of his crate, both with us and with our older dog. When he gets tired we pop him in his crate. He'll normally whine (VERY loudly) for a couple of minutes and then settle down to sleep. The trouble is, anytime anyone in the house makes a sound he wakes up and starts screaming to get out.

We think the best thing to do (what we've been doing so far) is just be firm and ignore the fuss. He IS tired and we wouldn't leave him in his crate for more than a couple of hours anyway. But he seems to be getting worse.

I thought I'd post up as he is our first tiny puppy and I thought others might offer tips or at least reasurance that ignoring is the right thing to do under these circumstances.

I suppose one thing I'm uncertain about is whether to have is crate in a room with us, or whether to shut him away in a quiet room on his own.

I would say that especially with him being a beagle , he just wants to be with his pack .
Of course everyone does things diffently but is there some reason he has to go in his crate if you are there ?

Our pups are always crated at night and when we go out, but not during the day if we are in. As long as you get him used to being left alone in the day by you leaving the house and leaving him a kong or something, I would say there is no need to crate him when you are there, you could actually teach him the opposite of what you want, ie. when I moan I get out,you don't want that starting in the middle of the night.....you could also put him off the crate...

That's what I do too , crate at night and if we go out but not when we are there . If we go out we give her a kong filled with treats , she shrieks when we leave but not for long . If we are in she likes to be with us ( she is 6 months old now )

He's only put in the crate to sleep - it's not really any different from putting him in a bed. Our first Beagle liked it and a huge advantage was that when she was overtired you just had to put her in her crate and she'd flake out. But she had a much calmer nature than the little boy, and she was also a month older when we got her.

And of course, this time around we've got two young dogs so there's a whole extra level of complexity!

But no, we don't need to use the crate if we find an approach that works better.

The crate itself isn't the problem with this little boy. He just wants constant attention. He's currently on my lap sleeping. If I put him down on his bed he'll start squealing again. If I put him into his little run for a couple of minutes to go down and put the dinner on or make a coffee he'll scream. If I take him down with me the two dogs will get into a boistrous play fighting session. He's not frightened - his little tail is wagging away. He just doesn't want to miss out on anything.

When we collected him from the breeder he was happily sleeping alone in a crate. He did it a few times here. But then decided it's nicer having someone with him all the time. So I think it's something we've done. Not sure whether we've been too firm or not firm enough.

But we've only had him five days and we're frantically trying to figure out routines to keep two young dogs happy, trained, exercised, toileted, fed, played with etc....without world war three breaking out every two minutes (only play fighting, but pretty energetic, noisy stuff ). So it's quite possible that he feels that he's not getting enough undivided attention. I do feel that ignoring his attention seaking squealing made him worse.

I can certainly try leaving him out of the crate for a couple of days to see if it settles him down, but it's not practical for him to always sleep on my lap! He's got to learn to sleep on his own somewhere. I don't mind whether that's bed, chair, cushion or crate

I think that's the thing having 2 young dogs TBH. Max was happy to sleep in his crate, and I could go round the house and do my jobs etc.

However, with Max AND Murphy, the crate didn't work. Murphy wanted to be where his brother was. If Max was sleeping on his bed, that's where Murphy wanted to be. If Max was in the garden, that's where Murphy wanted to be.
Wobetide if I needed to go upstairs.... both at the bottom of the stairs, whining

Could you create some little beds in different rooms for your puppy? Then if you are doing the ironing (for example) he can be on a bed in the same room, and can see you, but isn't on your lap.

I found that Murphy was happy to be left (in the kitchen) with Max, and they would scrap for a little while, then fall asleep together.

My poodle puppy screamed and demanded attention but she is 6 months old now and I must say she is getting better . Sometimes I can even go into another room without her

It's inevitable that you are going to have a certain amount of squealing and protest as he learns where the boundaries are and tries to move them. Certainly, take the time to spend playing and bonding with him on a one-to-one basis, but don't feel you must have him on your lap simply because he will squeal if you don't. You will be making a rod for your back and will still get the squealing when you tell a fully grown Beagle he can't sit on your lap.

My pup has now moved into adolescent mode which is full of new challenges!

Good luck!

I think it is a good idea to put him in the crate throughout the day to sleep, and as you say, you know he is tired! It gives you a rest and your other dog a rest.

I know people often adivse having the crate in a busy part of the house, but Tonks could never cope with this. What worked for Tonks was putting the crate in the kitchen, and shutting the door, leaving the radio on so that other sounds didn't disturd her and almost completly covering the crate with blankets. This worked for her......she found it hard to be in her crate when she thought things were going on without her or with people walking in and out of the room.

We've pretty much solved the problem, although there are still a couple of *issues* that we need to figure out.

Fortunately we have a good friend who breeds beagles and has 9 of her own. She is also a bit of an expert in dog psychology. I gave her a ring and talked her though all that's been happening and she knew exactly what the problem was.

We'd been advised by our obedience trainer not to let the dogs spend too much time together in the early days as we would be likely to end up with a little pup that was depedent on his big sister and unable to function independently. Our beagle expert friend agreed with this in principle but had doubts as to whether it'd work with Beagles.

Anyway, her opinion was that the squealing and screaming wasn't anything to do with being lonely or separation anxiety. It's just typical Beagle nosiness. She felt that when Beanie (the older dog) was in a different room the little pup just got frantic because he though he was missing out on something. And a similar thing was happening with Beanie so the tension was building up.

Her advice was to forget about keeping them apart and just let them bond. Figure out later how to prevent dependancy problems. Beagles are just too pack oriented. She thought that Biggles would be absolutely fine in his crate provided he could see all of us and knew he wasn't missing out on anything. Previously one of us would have one dog upstairs and the other would have the second dog downstairs. It seemed like a good plan but it just drove the dogs nuts!

She was absolutely right. Things have settled right down. We've been giving him a lot more freedom to roam the house now that we're not trying to keep the dogs appart. They've slept together happily out of the crate and biggles is fine if we pop him in his crate whilst we're all in the same room. The tension in the house has evaporated. They still play fight a lot (VERY noisily), but they also spend a lot of time wandering around the house side by side loving each other's company or curled up together sleeping.

He still gets very vocal if we try to pop him in his crate when we're not in the room. I think this is something we've got to tackle now as sometimes you just need him safe for 10 minutes while you're doing something with Beanie. Also, he needs to learn a bit of independence.

And of course, now that we're letting the dogs spend lots of time together we really do need to work very hard on making sure Biggles can function independently from Beanie. It will be much easier in three weeks time when Biggles has had all of his shots and can go out.

So thanks for all the advice. It really did help us to figure things out.