Yes, You Need to Crate Your Dog After the Board & Train
After many years of speaking with people on the phone about their dog’s issues, I’ve observed two interesting themes: 1) It's quite common for people to want to leave the "dirty work" or the "mean stuff" to the trainer, usually in the context of a Board & Train program and 2) They truly believem that their relational issues with their dog can be fixed by a third party at a remote location. Like, I’ve had people willing to sign on the dotted line to pay thousands of dollars for a Board & Train (that involves some crating throughout the day) and when I tell them their resource guarding, destructive dog needs to be crated sometimes at home…and the behavioral issues will require consistent work at home for months or years…they tell me they can’t bear to see their dog in a crate and back out of the Board & Train. Literally, they are fine with me using a crate here, but at home, the emotional cost of having to crate the dog is too high. While some trainers find this kind of client behavior annoying, I am always interested in the psychology behind it, because if we can understand the emotion driving client behavior we may be in a better position to shape client behavior. I thanked the person for their honesty and self awareness, and wished them the best of luck in finding a trainer who could work within their “no crates at home” rule.
By relying on the trainer to handle the tough tasks like crate training, teaching the dog frustration tolerance, setting limits, and establishing aversive control of behavior, our client can distance herself from the less pleasant aspects of dog training. It's like passing the baton of authority and discipline onto someone else, allowing her to maintain a more nurturing and permissive role. Psychologically, this can provide a sense of relief and the illusion of being the "nice" one in the relationship. The problem is, behavior issues tend to continue at home once the dog realizes the crate, the training equipment, the skilled leadership, the promise of daily exercise and mental fulfillment…were all abandoned back at the trainer’s house. It’s imminently obvious to everyone involved, the trainer and the dog included, when the educational materials provided to the client have not even been opened or read, much less followed. It’s the client’s money to burn at the end of the day, but I always caution “lukewarm” potential clients that burning the money with fire would be a much quicker route than waiting months to get the dog into a Board & Train.
The most common scenario I observe is the client not wanting to use a crate at home. Getting the client to use the crate at home (even overnight) can be like pulling teeth, even though the client knows and has observed their dog being quite happy and content in their crate at boarding. For many dog owners, the idea of using a crate can be met with resistance and even a sense of guilt. It's understandable because, in our human perspective, we see it as a form of punishment for “bad dogs.”
As a trainer, I work to help clients reframe their understanding of the crate not as a punishment, but rather a safety enclosure for dogs who eat stuff while unattended, a den, and a personal "decompression zone.” It's a place where dogs can feel secure, have their own space, eat, and relax. It can also be a valuable option for dogs who are not great with people while they work on socialization skills. However, this mindset shift can be challenging for some individuals who have a hard time seeing beyond the initial perception of confinement = punishment. It can also be challenging for someone who can’t stand to see their dog frustrated or impatient.
In order for the client to feel confident using the crate as part of the longer term behavior plan, she would need to commit to providing her dog with ample exercise, mental stimulation, and training sessions. Yes, even for months after the Board & Train. Yes, for the life of the dog. This means going on long walks, runs, and engaging in activities that tire out her dogs. The idea is that a well-exercised dog will be more inclined to rest peacefully in the crate.
But what you have to understand is this: our typical client's daily routine hasn't traditionally included much outdoor time or structured exercise due to (more often than not) poor behavior on the part of the dog. Consequently, she finds it difficult to envision a future where her furry companions are well-behaved enough to go on long hikes or play ball off-leash. It's a classic chicken-and-egg situation.
She can’t agree to the lifestyle change involving some aspect of crate containment because on an emotional level, she feels guilty in anticipation and unsure whether she can provide enough exercise and stimulation to justify any level of containment. While the owner decides her next move, whether she wants to go with this trainer or that one, or re-home the dog, or enroll the dog in daycare full time…the dog is doing what dogs do: seeking pleasure. I’ve literally had dogs steal chicken off the counter while I was on the phone with the owner speaking to them about a training program…to address counter surfing! With the overwhelmingly large majority of clients, the dog is not suffering from genetic or cognitive issues that make them untrainable or resistant to learning from consequences. They are normal dogs suffering from an increasingly emotional attitude surrounding pet ownership. They are suffering because their owners thinks that crating a dog for an hour while they are on the phone is mean (and their highest priority is to be seen as “nice” by their dog), but allowing them access to cooked chicken bones (and an ER visit) is not mean. You have to really think about this. A person who is willing to spend thousands of dollars on a training program to address countersurfing allows their dog access to cooked chicken bones while they are on the phone with the trainer. Let that sink in. Not intentional access, of course, but you know that saying “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?” I promise that our conversation is not the first time a crate has ever been suggested. It’s the top thing recommended by their friends and family, it’s what all the Google searches have returned as a the most sensible solution. In fact, I’ve even told people: “You don’t need a Board & Train, you just need to crate your dog when you leave.” Believe it or not they will sometimes argue back with me, telling me they think he just needs to be “sent off and reformed” and then he will come back a more well behaved dog that never eats the couch. The reason the client has not already implemented a crate routine is not because it isn’t the logical choice, but because it isn’t an emotionally comfortable choice.
To break this cycle, our client would need to make a commitment to change her routine and actively work on her dogs' behavior. She would need to emotionally accept that no Board & Train will be a forever “fix” for her dog’s behavior issues. She would need to work on her own inner confidence, and interrogate her impulse to constantly be seen as the “good cop” in her dog’s eyes. No one gets a dog so that it can live a harsh, ascetic life, including myself. Of course we want to give our dogs as much freedom as possible, and I think it is possible for most dogs to have free run of the house. But we also can acknowledge that no animal living on earth can constantly be getting what it wants every moment of its life. Sometimes dogs do transiently gripe and complain when they are crated, when they can’t approach another dog on the street, when dinner isn’t coming fast enough, when you stop them from ingesting things that are bad for them. But the key to raising good, safe, healthy dogs is reframing these mundane stressors as useful opportunities for learning, like we’d do with little kids. We would never think of giving a toddler access to the entire household, knives and all, for 8 hours a day unattended, why on God’s green earth are dog owners seeing this as acceptable for dogs? When we put a baby down for a nap in a crib, why can we see this as a safe, reasonable strategy to facilitate healthy sleep, yet when this is done with a crate and a puppy, we see it as prison?
In our program, we believe that training is rarely ever about “the dog.” It is almost always about what owners have knowingly allowed the dog to get away with. But unlike other trainers, we are not going to shame you for your past, or judge you for your mistakes. We have heard and seen it all, and human emotion driving human behavior makes perfect sense to us! However, because we genuinely want your home life to improve, we owe it to you to be honest - and that includes interrogating your thought process about how you are currently relating with your dog. In our experience, owning a dog with behavioral challenges can be a valuable invitation towards overall personal growth and self-awareness. It's not just about teaching clients training techniques; it's about helping them navigate their own mindset and overcome the psychological barriers that may hinder their progress. It’s not easy, but it works!