Whether you are planning to keep your new puppy as a family pet, or train him/her as a working dog, all puppies benefit from early human interaction. From the time our pup’s eyes open, we are right there as a friendly human security blanket for their impressionable minds.

These pups here just turned 6 weeks old. They have been traveling and spending time in a large crate together up to this point. Traveling around and meeting new friendly voices, smells, and things — now the time has arrived for the pups to begin their individual crate training sessions and begin adjusting to becoming more independent.

Below is a general guideline for how long to crate pups during the daytime.

• 9 – 10 weeks old – 30 minutes
  
• 11- 14 weeks old – 1 to 3 hours
  
• 15 – 18 weeks old – 3 to 4 hours
  
• 18 weeks plus – 4 to 6 hours (8 hours max if essential)

The rules are a little different when it comes to overnight crating. Try to put your puppy in his crate beside your bed at night, or at least somewhere you can hear him (although you may wish you couldn’t hear him at 2am). Remember, he’s still a baby and will need to go out to ‘potty’ at least once during the night.

Crate training puppies during the night time is easier if you make sure your little guy has had a potty break and hasn’t had access to drinking water after approximately 8pm. That way he’ll most likely go to sleep for several hours before needing to go out.

At 8 weeks old, these pups will be headed to their families. Our goal is to have them started on a regular schedule with feeding and potty time. At KyGS we also begin individual basic obedience lessons at 6 weeks, so these cute little bundles of fluff and teeth come with a few tricks up their sleeves.

Petmate Sky Dog Kennel

We use and recommend this crate for transporting and crate training new pups. (Remember that a crate needs to be large enough for your puppy to sit up straight and its head not touch the top, ears should not touch the top if cropped). Buying a big crate for your puppy to “grow into” is not a good idea, expect them to outgrow a couple crates.

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