Teaching a High Energy Lab Puppy to Be Calm When Let Out of Her Kennel

For this Council Bluffs dog and puppy training session we worked with 2 year-old Silver Lab Leo and 6 month-old Chocolate Lab Posh who gets super excited when being let out of her kennel.

We started off the session by discussing Leo’s habit of barking territorially at people who approach his home. Now that Posh has joined the mix, the barking can get pretty intense.

I shared a number of dog behavior tips that should help. In many cases, I find that people do not clearly communicate what they expect from their dog. As a result, many dogs get confused into thinking that they need to do something to contribute to the betterment of the group with many dogs nominating themselves as sheriff.

The more that the guardians pet their dogs with a purpose, reward desired behaviors and enforce a couple of rules, the more the dogs will see them acting as leaders providing a safe environment. Once this is the case, Leo’s barking should subside. If it continues after a month or so of the things we covered in the session, we may need to set up a one hour follow-up session to work on some counter conditioning to sounds outside the home.

Another issue the guardians had was over excitement from both dogs. This is a very normal behavior for many dogs due to the fact that humans often reward and reinforce excited behavior. After covering the common mistakes the people make to reinforce excited behaviors, I suggested some tips such as exercising the dogs before guests come over or at times where they are likely to demonstrate an abundance of energy.

I’d also like to see the guardians help the dogs practice a little self-restraint and self-control. Dogs are instinctive creatures and if we don’t help them practice controlling themselves in small tasks throughout the day, they can often get into trouble when there is a need for control.

A great way to help a dog learn to calm itself down is to teach it to remain calm when you’re about to let it out of the kennel. I handed my camera to one of the guardian so that I could demonstrate how to train a puppy to be calm when you’re about to let it out of its kennel. Click the free positive puppy training video below to learn how to teach a pup to be calm when letting it out of its crate.

It was great to see how quickly posh was able to settle down in her kennel. As you can see in the halfway point of the video, because she is so accustomed to excitedly running out of her kennel, this exercise was a little bit confusing to her at first. However, once the guardians get an opportunity to practice this a few times, and her buddy Leo is nearby instead of in the kitchen, she should be able to figure this out and start staying calm in the kennel on her own. This may seem like a simple exercise but teaching a puppy to be calm in its kennel can have profound effects on many other aspects of their behavior.

The great thing about this secret to teaching a puppy or dog to be calm in the kennel is that anyone can do it. You don’t have to be a professional Silver or chocolate Lab dog trainer to do so.

I strongly recommended that the guardians enroll posh in our puppy socialization classes as soon as possible. She’s a great dog but learning to socialize with other puppies is an important part of any pups development. The sooner you get to it, the more effective it is.

To help the guardians remember all of the dog and puppy behavior tips I shared in this in-home Council Bluffs dog training session, we recorded a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.