When crate training your new puppy, it’s very important to first familiarize it with the crate.  It’s a good idea to encourage your puppy to enter the crate with treats and toys and to make this a place of comfort and ease.  You want your puppy to feel that the crate is a place of safety, like a den, and a place that it will want to go to.  For younger puppies, a small water dish may also be included.

The crate should never be a place of punishment.  In accordance with the above rule, making the crate the place that the puppy is dragged to after misbehaving will only create apprehension in your pet.  Effective crate training is all about making the crate like a doghouse for your puppy, so isolating your pet as punishment is always a bad idea. 

Another way to make sure that your puppy feels at home in its new crate is to make sure that it spends time in the crate while you are home.  Never push or pull your new dog into the crate.  It’s necessary to coax your puppy in with treats and praise.  If your puppy is showing reluctance with this, you may find that feeding it in front of the crate, then within the crate, and finally to the back of the crate is effective.  Remember, this is all about comfort.  If your puppy isn’t comfortable with the crate right off the bat, you’re going to have problems.  Also, remember to keep the door open while you’re home so that your puppy may come and go as it pleases. 

After this step, you may begin to lead your puppy into the crate and close the door for short periods of time to acclimate them to this new situation.  Leaving the room and returning is a good way to prevent an association in the dog’s mind between the crate and complete isolation. 

If your puppy has an accident in the crate, it’s important not to punish it upon your return.  Simply clean up the mess.  As mentioned, dogs have an instinctual distaste for eliminating where they sleep, so this problem will correct itself in time.  When cleaning up the accident, remember not to use any ammonia based cleaners.  Ammonia resembles the odor of urine and may actually encourage your puppy to relieve in this space a second time.

Crate training is a process that requires patience and diligence, but such is the case with any new puppy.  If you follow these simple guidelines, your puppy will be ready to be left alone in a crate of amiable size for up to 6 hours by the time it is over 17 weeks old.