Some Force Free Kennel Training Tips to Help a Pomeranian Named Blue

By: David Codr

Published Date: June 2, 2021

Blue Pom scaled - Some Force Free Kennel Training Tips to Help a Pomeranian Named Blue

For this Omaha puppy training session we worked with Blue, a 7 month-old Pomeranian who likes to steal things for attention and doesn’t like his kennel.

Blue was enrolled in our puppy classes last month and that is where I first met him. He was one very determined pup; barking like crazy to get his guardian’s attention during the lecture portion of class.

Blue used a similar strategy when I started this in home session, stealing things he wasnt supposed to have to get his guardian’s attention. In the free positive dog training video below you can see how I responded when he stole a plastic bag from the cupboard.

Many people are unaware that for dogs and puppies, any attention is validating and rewarding. So chasing your dog around when it steals things serves to only cause the dog to repeat that behavior because it works. Redirecting and keeping tempting things out of reach is a much better strategy.

The guardians were using the kennel to keep him from getting into things when they were gone. But because Blue was in there more than he liked, the pup had started refusing to go into the kennel. This often happens when people only kennel their puppy when they leave; going to the kennel starts to represent the humans leaving. This association causes many dogs and puppies to refuse to go to their kennel.

I had the guardians bring the kennel out to the living room so I could show them a force free kennel training exercise for puppies. You can learn how to train a puppy to go into their kennel by watching the free positive kennel training video below.

This is the same positive crate training exercise we teach in our puppy kindergarten class. But since Blue skipped puppy kindergarten, he missed that lesson. While it would have been better to do the crate training when Blue was younger, he did great with this crate game at home. If you have a pup who doesn’t like going to the crate, you can use this same lesson. You don’t have to be a professional Pomeranian puppy trainer to teach a puppy to like going to their crate.

We shared a number of other positive puppy behavior tips in this in home Omaha puppy training session. To help the guardians remember them all, we recorded a roadmap to success summary video that you can check out below.

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This post was written by: David Codr