Callie is the first dog we’ve “crate trained.” Here are a few articles on how to crate train a dog: “Crate Training a Puppy or Adult Dog.” “Confinement and Crate Training,” the San Francisco SPCA.
We’ve been very pleased with the results, but we weren’t sure what the “end game” would be. Does Callie have to live in the crate forever? When would she be free to run around the house? Will she want to go back to the crate on her own?
Well, the last two nights answered some of these questions. We decided on Friday night to let Callie sleep on our bed. So we left the crate door open, and, sure enough, she jumped up on the bed and slept on the corner where Jamie used to sleep. Here, from My Doggie Says…, is a picture of Jamie sleeping on our bed:
Callie did just fine, except for bouncing off the walls — and me — for the first two or three minutes. But she settled down and had a good night’s sleep on the bed.
Last night was different. She jumped around for a few minutes and finally settled down on her corner. But, at about midnight, Barbara asked, “Is Callie still on the bed?” I took a look, and she wasn’t. She had jumped off the bed and snuggled up in her crate!
This made me feel really good about the crate. She obviously sees it as “her” place, and she was comfortable sleeping in it, even though she could go anywhere in the bedroom. This also started to make me feel better about the “end game.” So maybe there really will be a time when Callie has the run of the house & yard but will choose to spend some time in her crate because it’s “her home.”
Then, at about 2:00 in the morning, Barbara (asker of all questions), said, “Is Callie still in her crate?” So I checked (being the answerer of some questions) . Callie wasn’t on the bed, and she wasn’t in her crate. She had snuggled by the sliding glass door, with her nose right in the open crack of the door — getting lots of nice fresh night air.
I thought this was wonderful. One of my doggie fascinations is, “How do dogs decide where to be?” One answer is certainly “near nice fresh air.” But this is another topic.
And then, when it was time to get up, we noticed that Callie had moved to the floor by Barbara’s side of the bed. Callie had an adventurous night — starting to sleep on the bed, moving to her crate, then some fresh air and, finally, snuggling up close to Barbara.
Somehow, it all felt really good. It validated some of the crate theory — that she liked it well enough to choose to sleep there for a while. But it was also fun to see her making her own decisions about “where to be.”
