Welcome to Pawprint Academy, your blueprint to
raising better dogs. My name is Ryan, and I'll
be your host for this journey. I've got my trusty
co -host here, Brianna. Hello. And together,
we're bringing you real -world training insights
built on leadership, structure, and proven methods.
We record this podcast with live clients on the
line in one take with live, unscripted questions
and answers. At the end of the day, this podcast
is a lot more than just teaching your dog to
sit or stay. creating calmness, and becoming
the kind of leader your dog truly needs. We do
that with our three pillar method of trust, obey,
and perform. Together, we'll show you how these
three pillars shape every step of training. Thanks
for being here. Let's get started. Hey, hey,
it's episode 27, Crate Anxiety, Fixing Whining,
and Panic in the Kennel. Welcome. Hello, hello.
All right, we're going to jump right into it.
We are going to probably cruise through this,
but we'll see. The concept tonight is a big focus
on preemptive actions, proactivity. Because this
is a problem. Great anxiety. Huge problem. Lots
of people deal with it. Very few things that
you can do at the end of the day. A lot of things
that you can do up front. A lot of small things
that you can build towards to try to fix the
problem. But the biggest thing is going to be
time. Yeah, for sure. And no one wants to hear
that. Yeah. And so to a certain degree, this
whole episode could be summed up by saying, don't
do a certain amount of points that we'll talk
about to create it. And then if you have it,
you just have to reverse it. Yeah. By building
in a lot of time and a lot of patience into the
dog learning that it's okay. And that's it. All
right. Thank you for your attention. Have a great
night. That's all of it. Yeah, that is it. So
let's break it down. In general, crate anxiety
is not solved by just making the kennel more
comfortable. It's not solved by just giving them
a bone. It's not solved by drugging your dog.
It's solved by building clarity, structure, and
calmness as well as independence so that the
dog learns that the crate is a place to settle,
not a place to fight. And I say this a lot in
lessons, you have to let the dog stand on their
own four paws. Yeah. That's definitely a big
one. And I think it's a huge misconception that
a lot of dog owners have is their dog just, they're
always like, oh, I hate, my dog hates the kennel.
My dog hates the kennel. My dog hates the kennel.
Right. And so they don't do it. Right. Or they
don't put them in there. Right. Because he hates
it, so I hate it for him. But in reality, it's
not that the dog hates the kennel. The dog hates
that they have no other option than to relax
because they don't know how to relax. Right.
Everyone has certain things that they would rather
do. But that doesn't mean that they're scared
or anxious. So anxious, we use the word anxious
a lot. But true anxiety at the clinical level
is something far and away from the dog's a little.
I guess, upset that they have to be in the kennel
instead of the couch. Yeah, for sure. And when
we go and we talk to an owner, we teach someone
how to build neutrality in a crate so that your
dog will go into the crate. Inevitably, we ask
or are asked the question of, well, when are
they going to love the crate? Maybe never. Yeah,
maybe. Because love is a strong word. They learn
to love the couch because you love the couch.
They learn to love the bed because you love the
bed. They pattern that and then they're like,
yeah, it is pretty nice up here. It's higher
up off the floor. It's pretty soft. I enjoy it.
I like it. They don't, if, let's turn this around.
If they were to see you spend all of your time
in a crate, they'd probably learn to love it.
Right. Because you're their best friend. You're
their leader. You're their all those things.
You're the provider. You bring the food. Yeah.
You pay the electricity bills. You keep the internet
on. So they can watch Spongebob during the day
or whatever it is that they do. And if you were
to pattern a different set of furniture, they
would like that too. Right, and it's also not
strictly about the furniture, right? It's being
away from you most of the time. Right, and where
you spend your time, right? Where you value spending
your time. They want to value that as well. So
obviously we're not going to make everything
of the same value because you don't spend that
time there. So that's not the point. That's not
what we're trying to do. All we're trying to
do is make it. neutral we just want to make it
not a bad place we just want to make it not a
a place of fear or you know being scared and
having an anxiety attack yeah so if we teach
a dog that they can actually relax themselves
we give them the tools to deal with this And
if we do that early on in their life by showing
them that it's a neutral place, by showing them
that they didn't die. Right. Not dying is a strong,
you know, concept. But nothing hurt them. Yeah.
They didn't get hurt. They didn't get injured.
Nothing bad happened. Oh, cool. That wasn't so
bad. Yeah. And then they move on. We have to
pattern that. We got to use that over and over
and over and over. Right. It also builds confidence
in your dog to show them that they can do hard
things, right? Humans are always made to do hard
things and make progress and grow and all these
things. But we sometimes lack that expectation
in our dogs. Yeah. So most crate issues are not
about the crate. They're more about the dog's
inability to self -regulate, like Brianna said.
And so when they're separated from their handler,
from their owner, they immediately respond in
a way that they've responded before. That's classical
conditioning in action. It's not something that
the dog always has control over, but that doesn't
mean it's bad for the dog either. We just have
to work through it. Yeah. Whining, barking, and
panic behaviors often are reinforced over time
because the dog learns that the noise that they
make creates or gains your attention. Pretty
much across the board, everyone that we've ever
talked to that doesn't crate their dog for a
definitive reason like, Well, I've tried it and
they hate it. Yeah. It immediately, you can tell
by the owner's body language, the owner also
hates it because of what they went through while
trying to teach them how to go into their crate.
Yeah. Because the dog made it painful enough
and horrible enough that that owner was like,
no more. Yep. Let's come on out of there. Right.
And that's exactly the moment that the dog is
like, ah. I won. I have a tally mark. Right.
And whether the dog's truly competing or not,
it is the same concept that the dog just figured
out that it worked. And they're like, got it.
Well, that does it. Right. It's the same thing
if you scream for help and someone comes running.
It's a real quick, you're like, ah, cool. Well,
that worked. The learning occurs. whether we
like it or not, sometimes accidentally. Right.
So we have to really, really be careful when
we're first starting. Yeah. If you have a puppy
and you're learning and you're setting it up
and getting it crate trained and learning how
to do this, you have to fight through those small
squabbles up front. Because they're only going
to get worse. Right. And if you give in one time,
it's going to get worse the very next time. They'll
either get louder or they're going to do it faster
at the time or both. Yeah. So dogs that lack
structure outside the crate are typically going
to struggle also more inside the crate. Because
there's no foundation. There's no standard of
calm behavior for them to fall back on that they
realize works. And so you end up with more of
it and more anxiety. We have to give the dogs
the opportunity to learn that they can calm themselves
down. And that's honestly, that's where the crate
comes into play. Because it's like time in the
crate teaches them to be neutral to time in the
crate. Yeah. Which is like, okay, the chicken
and the egg. Well, how do I get them to be calm
in the crate? This is the part of the podcast
where I was like, this is super fast. You just
do it. Yeah. Now, you can have these random one
-off issues where a dog's like. No, no, I am
getting out of here. And they will do everything
they can to break out of there. Typically, and
I'm going to cover it right now rather than in
the second section here, but typically when,
if you have a highly anxious dog and you're listening
to this podcast, you're like, oh yeah, that all
fits my dog. I'm going to encourage you to get
a high quality crate right off the bat. Don't
skimp. on a couple of bucks and then end up spending
just as much if not more by taking them to the
vet because they hurt themselves trying to break
out of that little wire crate that you got on
facebook marketplace yeah i am a huge fan and
saving money that is not the concept here the
issue is that i inevitably get the phone calls
when something goes really badly And a dog breaks
out of a crate, chews through or breaks the little
wires, squeezes out of them, punctures themselves
several times, bleeds all over and gets out.
And now the owner is horrified when they come
home. There's blood on the floor. Their dog is
mostly fine, but super not interested in going
back in the crate. The crate is destroyed. They're
taken to the vet. They're super spun up and,
you know, oh my gosh, what am I going to do?
And now they're like, now I need professional
help. Now, some of that stuff could have been
avoided. And I know not everyone is in a financial
position to throw a whole bunch of money at an
ice crate. There are some really, some pretty,
it's, don't quote me on this, on the, well, that's
not as high quality as this one. Yeah, for sure.
Money solves these issues in a, you get what
you pay for. type of environment however i'll
just tell you uh without giving a recommendation
to one or another what we use i am a huge fan
of roughland kennels i don't have any affiliation
with them they pay me no money i just like them
i like them because they're one piece molded
plastic and they're pretty easy to to uh transport
around they fit in the back of like an suv They,
there are little custom fans that can bolt to
the outside of them. They're pretty easy to clean
and they do great when you have a whole bunch
of them and you're tossing them around. Yeah.
Right. Because you can toss that sucker across
the room, you know, like after you've cleaned
them all and you're, you're bringing them inside
and you're just throwing them inside into the
garage and they're tumbling around and they're
great. Yeah. I couldn't probably do that with
a big metal crate. However, I've used impact
crates. They're very, very high end. Love them.
I have been very impressed with their product.
I have a Rock Creek crate that is a metal, a
collapsible metal kennel. All of those I've used,
I like, I have found through recommending them
to different clients that they, They've had a
much better time with those because of the way
that they're made. They don't have any purchase
points on the inside where the dog can kind of
get a good grip on something. And that's how
they initially start gnawing away or grabbing
or, you know, creating leverage where they can
eventually try to bust on out of there. Almost
across the board. I'm just calling it out as
I see it. I won't like not mentioning. any brands
of wire crates but in general every bad hero
or horrific crate incident that i have ever had
experience with was always a wire kennel or wire
crate right i mean i don't think we can name
any brands of wire crates anyways they're just
wire kennels yeah right it's like whatever the
the Company is that sells it is usually the the
big box store. Yeah, it's like their brand. Yeah
anyway, those that's that's my just professional
opinion on crates and Crate anxiety if you have
a crate anxious dog the number one thing that
you can do right off the bat is save up the money
and buy something that's that's That's safer
for your dog so that at least you can check one
thing off of the peace of mind list and feel
better about the situation you're in right because
yeah it'll lessen your anxiety in the long run
right yeah nothing is gonna make you quit trying
to work through this more than coming back and
having an injured dog all right inconsistent
release timing this is super important because
it creates more whining over time. Inconsistent
release just means, well, sometimes you release
them right when they whine. And sometimes you
release them after they were quiet for five seconds.
And sometimes you release them after they were
quiet for an hour. The issue with that is that
it's unpredictable. And sometimes you can...
incorrectly or accidentally teach the dog or
at least reinforce to the dog that they're being
released because they whined. Now you're not
doing that on purpose but that could be the message
that the dog gets. So in the second section or
I'm sorry in the third section I'm going to talk
about One of my favorite strategies for what
I call capturing a release time. And that will
be a strong solution to that. But to highlight
the issue, if you're not consistent about the
trigger for why the dog gets out, the dog will
pick up on the differences and they will be opportunistic.
Yeah, absolutely. As soon as the dog whines and
it's like we a lot of times we we look at like
we're not just waiting for the dog to be quiet
and still be anxious in there, but be like panting
and pacing around. You're really looking for
calmness in the in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah. So let's talk about some like comfort based
solutions, because this is usually the solution
that I see. People do because they either looked
it up on Google or they chat GPT it and it was
like, oh, cool. Make it more relaxing for them.
So comfort based solutions are like adding blankets
or toys or just reassuring the dog. This can
work, but it doesn't work for a truly anxious
dog. It can work for. Like a dog that's at a
phase, you know, earlier where they're like,
eh, I don't really like it in here. Yeah. And
you're like, hey, it's okay. Like, oh, okay.
But that's not what we're talking about. We're
talking about actual crate anxiety. You're not
going to calm them down no matter what you put
in there. Right. As soon as the dog like whines
or something, they're like on Amazon and they're
like, I'm going to find some things. Right. Find
some soft, cuddly things. Make it nicer for him
because he's sad. Yeah. But. That's us putting
our emotions on the dog. He's not sad. Right.
It's more than that. Yeah. He has not learned
to regulate his own emotions. So sure, there's
probably some sadness in there, but then there's
also like 20 other emotions that are flowing
through. Right. And they just don't understand
what they're supposed to be doing, but trying
to give them comfort is not going to give them
the answer. Right. Yeah, and all of this is done
out of the goodness of your heart. You want the
best for your dog, for sure. No version of this
that I'm saying that anyone's messing this up
on purpose. It's just that it's not a solution
that usually works. So toys, constant reassurance,
it doesn't give any clear expectations related
to the behavior. It just is like. Here, here's
another thing. Right, it usually gives them something
to destroy in the long run. Right, something
for them to be anxious with. Yeah. Right? And
so think about it this way. If you never force
someone to think through a problem, they'll never
build. the muscle and the solution and the the
skills to work through that problem well this
is the same thing as a dog they're not going
to learn to calm themselves down by themselves
right no one's going to teach them that yeah
so you have to and the way you do that is through
crate and place yeah as the top two there's other
things leave it that's a great one but All three
of those things build on each other. The crate
is the easiest and most basic one because it's
confinement. Place, you have to work on emotional
regulation and decision -making at the same time,
including you holding the dog accountable. Your
accountability is automatically held in a crate
because they're in a crate. Right. So yeah, don't
put your dog on place and expect to just like
check out from your dog to start off with unless
you're doing a tethered place, which is also
a good recommendation for very beginning, like
early stages of just teaching calmness. And then
that way the tether becomes the accountability
piece. So letting a dog out while they're still
whining is going to teach them that the panic
works. If they get more panicked, it's... and
then you come out of wherever you're at and you
show up and you save the day by letting them
out this is one of the fastest ways to build
long -term crate problems absolutely one of the
fastest ways yeah ignoring the problem without
a plan can also fail though because if the dog
is not learning what to do instead of whining
you're going to be very unsuccessful because
you can say No, don't bark. No, don't whine.
No, don't. But what do you want them to do instead?
This trips a lot of people up because you end
up, I end up asking people and I get the craziest
looks. Well, what do you want the dog to do instead
of barking? And they'll be like, well, I want
him to be quiet. Like, right. I got it. How are
you doing that? How did you teach him to be quiet?
Did you ever teach him to be quiet? Well, no,
that's what I want him to do. Right. I got it.
But did you teach him that? Right. So the concept
is that you have to teach your dog what you want
them to do. Yeah. So maybe you want them to lay
down. And when you have them lay down, that does
not include barking. So now you can say, no,
don't bark. You know, in parentheses. No. Down.
Because down was not taught with a bark. So down
means lay down, be quiet. Yeah. Now you have
something that you can tell the dog what you
want them to do. That is the most ethical way
to do dog training. And the most successful way
to do dog training is tell the dog what you want
to do. That's important. Yep. Absolutely. Okay.
Let me look at my notes. How do you balance ignoring
noise versus actively teaching a calm behavior?
That's a good one. Okay. Right. Because it's
it. I think I touched on this earlier, but it's
not waiting for the dog to stop making noise
and like rustling around. It's like I almost
wait until the point where like the dog is like
totally relaxed, like ready to like doze off
relaxed before. I would say that the dog is actually
calm because calm to different people may look
like different things. But if a dog is panting
and pacing and not settling down, then just because
they're not whining or barking anymore doesn't
mean that they're necessarily calm. Right. Okay.
We're going to jump into the third part here.
Here's where we're going to throw a whole bunch
of solutions at you. And to preface this, it's
super important to remember. That dog training
is not one size fits all. Some of these things
might work. Some of these things might not work.
But that's the crazy part of dog training is
you're training a live, living, breathing, feeling
thing. Yeah. Everything's different. And the
way you do it is different. And that's why one
of the most frustrating things for owners is
that they do something. I talk to them on the
phone, tell them what to do. They do it. It doesn't
work. I show up. I do it. It works. And they're
like. What? Well, that comes from there's all
these tiny little variables. Yeah. How you do
it, how you say it, the intonation in your voice
when you say it, the firmness in your voice when
you say it, your energy, your timing, all of
those things come into play. Yeah, dogs care
about all those things. They do. They're very,
very intuitive in those things. So don't get
frustrated. Keep the emotion out of it and just
work through it. Yeah. All right. So start by
creating value for calm behavior. Number one,
if you don't establish value for the calm behavior,
the dog will only see value in the crazy behavior.
That's what seems to get you up to come and let
him out. The crazy behavior is what gets you
to yell at him. No, stop it. Don't bark. His
crazy behavior equals you doing something about
it. Right. And I think it doesn't always necessarily
like start only in the crate either. It's like
if you're only expecting your dog to be calm
when they're in the crate, but you're not also
reinforcing that sometimes outside of the crate,
then why would they go into it being calm only
in that situation? That's fair. Yeah. So if.
Let me get back on track. that's super accurate
right we have to be consistent not just in the
crate but also in all the other things that we
do calmness is something that is learned through
all of the different training that we do and
a dog cannot settle in the home a dog that cannot
settle in the home right they're not just gonna
suddenly settle in confinement yeah when they're
the most stressed So you have to know what you're
expecting out of the dog. Yeah. So we have to
start creating value in that calm behavior outside
the crate. We have to establish value in the
calm behavior in the backyard and calm behavior
in the living room and the bedroom and the every
room. Yep. Then it transfers. Because you've
already taught the dog a pattern. All right,
next. Use clear markers and timing. You need
to mark for good behavior while they're in the
crate. There's nothing saying you can't treat
your dog while they're in the crate. Yeah, absolutely.
When they get quiet and you mark it, they quiet
down, you count to three, and then you go, yes.
And you walk over there. And you give them a
treat, right? Or whatever your continuation marker
is that you want them to keep doing it. So that
is a great opportunity to reward the behavior
that you want. Then quiet can start to become
a command. Then you can name it. Once you've
taught it, By rewarding it, you've shown the
dog that there's, oh, I'm doing something that
is precipitating this reward. What am I doing?
Oh, I'm being quiet. I'm being calm. Okay, let
me try that again. Oh, wow, I got another treat.
And you're creating an actual command there.
Then you can name it and you can cue it. You
can put it on cue. Conversely, you can also put
the barking on cue and then it's even more clear.
You can tell your dog to bark. You can tell your
dog to be quiet. That's best case scenario. Yeah,
we've been using relax for Dexter and it's like
his indicator of like, not only am I asking for
down, but I'm asking you to like relax onto your
hip, like on cue so that I know that he's not
just going to jump right back up. Yeah. Okay.
Relax behavior. Where am I at? We only want to
release the dog when the dog is calm. This is
really important. People misunderstand what calmness
really is in dogs. And we go, oh, they're quiet
and they're laying down. They're calm. You need
to look at some other pieces of their body language.
If they're panting up a storm, they're not calm.
If they're licking their lips and they're fidgeting.
but they're laying down, they're not calm. When
they're laying on their side with their hip kicked
over and their paws outstretched and they're
just like, you can just tell a difference, right?
Yeah. You can like feel the energy in a dog when
they're calm versus like. that like panting type
behavior you can definitely like see it you can
also see it in their eyes and like their forehead
and their ears all of those things are going
to give you signals of whether the dog is still
kind of amped up or whether they're truly calm
yep exactly all right then we can progress gradually
through this we have to start with real short
little successful successful repetitions Because
that builds confidence in the dog. And if you
go too long, you try to achieve endurance. And
that's like, Bree says this all the time, the
college versus kindergarten. You've got to start
at kindergarten. You have to start with kindergarten
tasks. If you were to task a kindergartner with
college level math, it's going to go poorly.
But you forget as soon as it's a dog, it's like,
well, just lay in the crate. But that's not normal
for a dog to just know exactly how to calm themselves
down. So you have to start simple, start slow,
start easy. Okay. The next thing that I wanted
to talk through in what are we going to do about
it? This is called capturing. And I could probably
talk about. this and the concept for a long time
i'm going to try to stay on track capturing is
what we use when your dog barks because they
hear because they hear you coming right they
so let's say that your dog is in the crate and
they have been in the crate for a very long time
and you're in the other room and you're like
Oh, wow, they're finally relaxed. So you go to
get up and you go to open the door and they hear
you in the other room because the dog's got great
hearing and they start barking because they hear
you coming and it ramps them up. Well, now what
do you do? You have to go sit down again, right?
And you have to let them calm down because if
you walk out there right as they barked, it reinforces
that the barking is what makes you appear. And
you're like, oh gosh. And you do this three or
four times. You're like, this is a never ending
loop. They're never gonna come out. I have to
let them out. I gotta let them out to go potty.
I gotta let them, I gotta go. I gotta leave.
I gotta do other things. I have life to do. All
right, here's a solution. We start to pattern
a new obvious cue that precipitates why you showed
up. And so that's what this looks like. It's
called capturing. we're going to, this is similar.
I, the reason it's called capturing is, uh, it's
actually a medical term for like capturing a
heart rate with electrical activity, like in
a, like a, an EKG or ECG or whatever. Um, synchronized
cardio version. There you go. Hold on. Where's
my science? Where's my science music? There it
is. Synchronized cardio version. So the concept
is that we want to start using an alarm or a
timer. Something that's the same. Use the same
one every time. And before you go into the other
room, you set off the timer. And then you show
up. Now, you can do this two ways. You can legitimately
set a timer. You're like, cool. In 30 minutes,
I'm going to go in there. Cool. Awesome. So set
a timer for 30 minutes and then barking or not,
the timer goes off and then you walk in. Yeah.
So now the next time that you do this, you do
the exact same thing. You set a timer. When the
timer goes off, you go in. Now you need to make
this very consistent and very close to the same
amount of time. Between when the timer goes off
and you show up. Yeah. So you make it consistent
in the dog's mind too. Now where you go with
this is you can start setting that timer longer
and longer. And not reacting or adjusting anything
that you do in the house now to get around the
dog. Yeah. So that means by the time you're up
to. Let's just say that you started at five minutes
and then you added two more minutes to that and
then two minutes to that and you doubled that.
By the time you get to 20 or 30 minutes of them
being in the crate, they're going to be looking
for when is that timer going off. Now when the
timer goes off, you have to show up every single
time to let them out because the timer is now
predicting when they're going to get out. Once
you... work all the way up to an hour two hours
three hours usually my goal is always three hours
yeah by the time i can get them to stay in the
crate and to work through three hours and then
the timer goes off and i do that very slowly
just a few minutes at a time now you fully captured
their attention on the timer now what happens
is you can just use that timer With a five second
timer when you're ready to get up. Yep. So you're
in the other room and you're like, all right,
I'm going to go let him out. And you go five
seconds. Boom. Let it go. Timer goes off. You
show up because now the dog is not relating.
They're barking to your appearance. Yeah. You
fully captured. The concept that the timer initiates
your appearance. Once the dog sees that their
barking and their behavior and their everything
has nothing to do with when you show up, that
pattern can start to slowly die off. Yeah. And
now here's the bad news. Right. Right. That's
the good news of like how you can actually work
through that. Yeah. Because there are some dogs
that like they will just not quit. Yeah. They
won't stop. Because they truly believe that their
barking gets them what they want. Yeah. Now,
the bad news is that there's no quick fix to
that. And even we've had clients that are like,
look, you take my money. Just figure it out.
Yeah. Make it work. I don't want to deal with
it. This is crazy. I can't deal with it. And
you know what we do? We put the dog in a crate.
And we sit outside of the crate and we put headphones
in. Yeah. And we watch a movie. Yep. Because,
yeah, it can be rough. Right. And now there are
certain circumstances. We're never saying that
we're going to ignore a dog in some sort of a
medical emergency or something like that. That's
not what we're talking about. We're just talking
about a dog throwing a fit. Okay. Let's keep
it in perspective. But there's no shortcut. You
just have to work through it. Yeah. Because it's
already been learned. and patterned over and
over and over and over right yeah that's not
the first step of yeah that's not the step one
right it's patterning exactly as you said first
and then you just you rip the band -aid off and
it's like okay well now it's time to try it i
work backwards yeah so that you make sure the
dog is safe you make sure that the dog has gone
out you make sure the dog is fed you make sure
the dog has all of its needs true needs met.
And then it's okay for them to be loud and obnoxious
for a little while. There's no way around that.
They have to just see that their actions aren't
working and that it's inefficient. A dog does
not do anything that they don't get some value
out of. Not forever. They may do it once. They
may do it twice. And then it might even get worse
before it gets better. Yeah, that's the worst.
Because that is called an extinction burst. When
the dog's mind or brain is like, all right, I've
tried and tried and tried. I just can't seem
to get out of here. I just have to put in 100
% of my effort. I just have to give it everything
I have. Obviously, I haven't worked hard enough.
And then the real floodgates come open. And you're
like, oh my gosh, it's worse now. I've done something
wrong. No, that is what happens right before
you get that. You get that extinction burst.
That's what happens right before actual extinction.
Yeah. And then you start making progress. Yep.
And it's just important to just hold on to it.
Hold on to it. Keep going. Yeah. Keep pushing.
Yeah, basically. All right. I'm going to open
it up for. Questions? If anybody has a question,
now is your time. No questions. All right. No
questions tonight. Listener projects. Number
one, reset the crate association. So we've got
to place the dog in a crate. We'll start with
very short durations. Wait for even one or two
seconds of calm. And then mark with yes. Release
with free. That's what we do. But you can mark
with your continuation marker. Give them a good
job. Atta boy. You're doing the right thing.
And then release them with your release word
if they're able to come out. Repeat that multiple
times a day. They should be going in the crate
throughout the day. Here's one that we didn't
talk about. I'll just mention it quickly. If
you're only putting the dog in the crate when
you leave, you're wrong. Yeah. Yeah. You're not
doing it right. Right. Because obviously they're
not going to establish a positive association
of that. When they go in the crate, they know
you're leaving them. Yeah. You'll never have
success with that route. You really won't. You
will never accomplish what you're trying to do
that way. Because every time that you do that,
the dog's like. Ah, got it. You're leaving. We
don't want that. You have to be it. You have
to put the dog in the crate when you're there
too. Not forever. Just for a while. All right.
Project number two. Eliminate accidental reinforcement.
You have to crush this. Because if you don't,
once again, there's no hope for you. Because
you'll constantly accidentally reinforce the
wrong thing. And every time you do that, especially
once it's a learned pattern, every reinforcement
counts for three. Every time that you're trying
to devalue that, that counts for one. So now
it's like the one step forward, three steps back
issue. Yeah, that's the worst. So do not release
the dog while whining, barking, or scratching.
No matter what. Unless you're using that capturing,
and that's the value of the capturing concept.
Because you technically can get around that.
But without some sort of other trigger, marker,
or cue, you can't just walk up to a crate and
let a dog out that's whining and barking. They
will attribute that to their whining and barking.
Wait for a clear moment of calm, even if it's
brief. Reward that and release. Track your timing.
Because this is where most owners fail. And shameless
plug, this is where the Pawprint Academy app
is going to come into play so heavily. Logging.
In the app, you are able to do quick logs in
10 seconds or less. Pull it open. Tap, tap, tap.
You've got a quick log. You can go in. And with
two taps, you can repeat your last log entry.
But the point is that without logging or keeping
track of your timing, you're not going to be
exact. You're not going to know if you're getting
better or worse. You can go into the full journal
logs, if you're not just doing a little quick
log, and you can put in details about timing.
You can use, there are multiple different versions
of the journal that are all quick access depending
on what you're logging. If you're going in and
doing training reps or you're going in and doing
potty training or you're going in and doing crate
and relaxation and it will guide you through
all of that. And then you know what happens?
You save that and every day, this is totally
free. This isn't even a premium feature. Totally
for free. Every single day, the AI model that's
built into there analyzes all of your logs and
gives you an exact play -by -play of where you
are and where you need to go. That is not just
random AI guidance that you go online, type in,
how do I teach my dog to stay in a crate? But
it actually reads your logs, reads your journal.
and gives you real life accurate advice for your
dog in your journey with what you're dealing
with. That's going to be super, super important
for people. And I hope that you get a chance
to take advantage of that. But for now, we are
going to call it a night. Thank you so much for
tuning in. I am super excited to get the app
out hopefully this next month. We will stay tuned
for the exact release date. And if you are interested
in testing that stuff at all, please reach out
to me. You can reach me at ryan at topdogtrainingnc
.com or jump on our website, send me a contact
form right from the website at topdogtrainingnc
.com. Thanks, guys. Have a great night. Good
night.