Helping a Puppy Get Over His Fear of the Kennel

By: David Codr

Published Date: September 15, 2020

Scooby scaled - Helping a Puppy Get Over His Fear of the Kennel

For this Omaha puppy training session we did some kennel training with 5 month-old mixed-breed puppy Scooby, helping him get over his fear of the kennel.

Scooby is one high energy dog (see his acrobatics at the 6:10 marker in the roadmap to success video at the bottom) who gets 2 walks a day, but that isnt enough. When you have a higher energy dog, coming up with shorter, more frequent exercise sessions sprinked throughout the day are far more effective. I shared some creative ways to exercise the dog and a few other dog behavior tips before I turned my focus ot his main issue, the dog hates the kennel.

Many dogs fear the kennel for multiple reasons, but most often its due to a lack of practice in a positive way. This means making it enjoyable for the dog and not only kenneling the dog when you leave. Our dog trainer Dominique had come by a week before this session, going over some kennel games that really set Scooby up for success. These are easy ways for a dog to get over a fear of the kennel.

I pulled out some high value treats and handed my camera to one of the guardians so I could share an easy way to help a dog get over its fear of the kennel. You can learn how to train a dog to be calm in a kennel by watching the free positve dog training video below.

The great thing about this tip to help dogs stop fearing the kennel is how easy it is. As long as you follow the steps and progress as the dog’s confidence builds, anyone can do it, even if you arent a professional dog trainer. Ive successfuly used this trick to stop dogs from fearing their crate hundreds of times.

It will be important for the guardian to go slow. Many people rush this secret to stopping a dog from fearing the crate and end up with a dog who practices freaking out when in the crate. By progressively building up the duration, they can help Scooby practice being calm in the crate. Id like to see them do this positive crate training exercise 5 or more times a day to start. Once they work their way up to the dog being calm in the crate for 5 minutes or longer, they can start practicing less frequently each day (but the more practice, the faster the results).

Additionally, proper exercise, followed by 10+ minutes to recover will set Scooby up for success with this easy crate training exercise. It should also help with some of his other, less pressing dog behavior problems.

To help the guardians remember everything we covered in today’s in home Omaha dog training session, we filmed a roadmap to success video that you can watch below.

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This post was written by: David Codr