Originally Posted by JenBKR
Thanks for the advice, hubby and I are talking. I'm the one that thought up the crate, and my trainer said the same thing. I was just worried since I don't know his training history
Since you don't know his prior experience or training with the crate. I would start out with door open and see what he does, are you clicker training him? If so I would click any movement towards the crate, I would not force him in at all, if he goes it yeah, and lots of treats inside. If he doesn't want to go in then that is ok for now. What I would do is feed him right next to the crate for a week, then right inside the door, so his head is inside the crate but his body is not. Each week I would move the bowl a little bit further in until his entire body is inside the crate, do that for at least a week, keep feeding him inside the crate and close the door. When he is finished wait a few minutes before you let him out. Leave the door open to the crate all the time, so he can choose to go in and out if he likes. This is a slow process, so don't rush it. If he is not ready to move on to the next step then go longer than a week, a little work now will pay off huge in the long run. Good luck.
Gina
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Crate training is essential, and like everyone else said just train him as if he were a puppy since you don't know if he was ever trained before. I am crate training Luka at the moment. When she first got here you literally had to pick her up and shove her into the crate, not easy with a dog her size. But I *couldn't* let her have the run of the house because I didn't know if she would chew stuff up. So I started throwing a treat in there to get her in and give her lots and lots of little training treats and lots of praise right after I put her in. She's learning to love the crate, and for the most part she is walking in by herself now, and I've only had her two weeks.
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