How to Train a Puppy to Stay in a Crate at Night

Lucky lights up your life and you aren’t ashamed to say it. I mean, who can hold back a grin when puppies are so cute? Your puppy follows you into every room, even though they sort of shuffle and slide along the floors. In fact, they want to spend every second with you. Now this was good to start with, but now you’re starting to worry. Lucky doesn’t want to leave your side and that means putting her to bed in her crate at night is proving challenging. She howls, moans and tries her best to escape. 

Training your puppy to stay in their crate at night is extremely important, both for you and for them. If they don’t get comfortable staying in their crate then they may develop separation anxiety. This will make leaving them alone to go to work extremely difficult. It also means they may be extremely unhappy a lot of the time. So it’s important you train the pup to spend time alone.

Training your puppy to stay in a crate at night can be challenging and will require restraint on your part. The trick is to gradually build up the length of time they spend in there. It’s also important you do what you can to make the crate as comfortable a place to spend time as possible. That means ensuring you can meet all Lucky’s needs.

Because your puppy is young, they should be easy to mold and train. This means you could see results in just a few days. But if Lucky is stubborn and particularly clingy then you may have your work cut out. It could be six weeks before they sleep comfortably in their crate. Get training right and you’ll develop a healthy bond between you both, ensuring you can both cope and be happy without each other. Not to mention it means you won’t have to worry about them doing any damage around the house at night.

Before you start training, you need to check you have a few things. A crate is obviously one of the most important components. Be sure the crate is sized appropriately for your puppy--big enough to stand up, lie down and turn around in, but not so big there is enough space to use as a potty spot. You will also need blankets, toys and anything else you would like to use to make the space comfy.

You will then need tasty treats or some of the puppy's favorite food broken into small chunks. Set aside 15 minutes or so each day for training. In particular, you will need some time early in the morning and just before bed.

Apart from that, you just need willpower and earplugs, then work can begin!