Positive Crate Training For a Dog Excited to Get Out of the Crate

For this in home Omaha dog training session we shared positive crate training tips to help Stella, a 2 year-old Australian Shepherd mix who’s excited to get out of the crate.

Typically, dogs are overly excited when I arrive for a session, but Stella was quite calm. Her guardians had practiced placing her away from the door, and it clearly paid off, as shown in the video below.

However, just because Stella was well behaved during the greeting doesn’t mean she isn’t a higher energy dog. When I met with her guardians, she wandered around the room looking for attention. I saw why, each time she nudges or pawed for attention, she got it. This is a common mistake many dog owners make so I know I needed to go over my celebrate lesson with them to stop them from making the jumping worse.

I gave her a bully stick to keep her busy while I talked to her guardians about her overall behavior and how to stop her from being so excited to get out of the crate.

Dog is Super Excited to Get Out of the Crate

First thing we covered was pointing out that anything Stella is doing when they pet or treat her is what they are rewarding. This includes rewarding excitement. Petting an excited dog gets you a more excited dog. Do that over and over and you get a crazy dog! So the first tip was to have the guardians stop petting Stella when she gets too excited.

But when you pet can help in other areas too. For example, petting a dog when its doing things you don’t like such as jumping, barking or chewing.  I wanted her family to get into a habit of halting their petting or interacting with her when she is excited. Over time, this will help her learn those arent desired activities and stop the attention she wants.

One of the family members asked how to tell how excited was too excited.  A good guage is to ask for a sit. If the dog is too revved up to sit, they can’t really listen. So its best to disengage and become passive until the dog calms down. Consistently stopping giving attention the instant the dog does what you don’t want will help the dog learn to give up those bad habits.

But the flip side of the coin applies as well. Celebrating your dog’s desired behaviors is a wonderful way to train them to offer desired behaviors instead. I spent a few minutes going over how and when to celebrate Stella for the things she does her huamns want.

I also went over how to use a marker word to make it easy for Stella to understand when she did the things her humans want. This is the fundamental building block of modern dog training. It will speed up Stella’s dog training but also buid her confidence because it removes any confusion as to whether she did what they wanted or not.

Next we discussed the proper way to introduce a cue to a dog. Many people think repeating a word over and over will help the dog learn them. In fact this usually accomplishes the opposite. The dog learns to ignore the word as it has no context. But using this technique with a marker word brings clarity for the dog which helps in many ways.

Later in the session I found out that Stella didn’t have a lot of rules, which is a common problem among my clients. Without clear boundaries, dogs test limits and receive inconsistent messages (petting or attention for unwanted actions), which can confuse them. Asking her to sit before opening the door, putting down her food, attaching the collar, etc can help her practice caliming down. This helps with over stimulated dogs, especially those who are excited to get out of the crate.

Consistently providing Stella with these small structure / impulse control lessons will help her practice self soothing as well as start to identify as more of a follower. This will help her feel less stressed because she won’t feel responsible for her humans or pressured when they don’t listen.

Dog Super Excited to Get Out of the Crate

Of the the primary times Stella is over threshold is when her humans are about to let her out of the crate. The humans were accidentally amplifing this emotional response by speaking to her in excited voices when they were about to let her out. Well if you have a barrier and speak to a dog in a higher pitched voice, it can generate a lot of energy which transitions into her being over excited to get out of the crate to get to them.

A greaty way to help a dog stop being so excited to get out of the crate is to practice some positive crate training exercises. When i crate train a dog, I break things into small steps. This allows me to focus on one element at a time. By practicing calm repeatedly, you can help a dog stop feeling so excited to get out of the crate.

Whem I’m showing my clients this positive crate training exercise, we focus on one step at a time. This means we arent closing or even touching the door at first. The door being closed and the humans talking so excited were what was causing Stella to get so excited to get out of the crate. So by removing both of those elements and practicing slowly, Stella calmed down really quickly.

If you have a dog excited to get out of the crate, you can learn my positive crate training technique by watching the free dog traininng video below.

Usually the first time I run through that exercise, it takes the dog much longer to settle and lay down. But Stella started laying down right away. This was a really good sign. Stella’s guardians will need to practice this exercise a few times a day to help her practice being clam. That combioned with stopping thier over excited talk when letting her out of the crate will help her remain calm.

This is a wonderfully easy way to crate train a dog. It always works if you go at the dog’s pace. Ive dealt with hundreds of dogs who’s humans thought there is no way to crate train a dog so easily. But if you go slow and watch the dog’s body language, and use a lot of treats, you will teach a dog to stay chill instead of being so excited to get out of the crate.

In fact I have had clients who’s dogs started to feel so relaxed about the crate, they go into it on their own and hang out when they want to rest or get some peace.

A Few More Positive Crate Training Tips

Many people only put their dog in the crate when they leave. This can make the crate into a punishment of sorts. An easy way to offset this is have your dog practice going into the crate while you are in the room. This seems counter intuative to most people, but practice when you dont need it is the best practice.

Leaving a treat in the crate when your dog isnt looking can cause your dog to return to see if there is another one there. Do that enough and going to the crate on their own becomes a behavior pattern. Now your dog is choosing to go to the crate on their own!

Leaving new toys inside the crate is another easy way to make the crate an awesome pleace to be.

Drilling a hole through the end of a bully stick, then loosely attaching it to the back bottom of the crate can also help dogs want to go into and hang out inside the crate.

All of these things help easily crate train a dog because they practice going into the crate on their own and being rewarded for doing so.

By the end of the session, Stella was calmer, was going into the crate on her own and sitting / laying down without being prompted. Stellla is a smart dog who picked up on the positive crate training exercises easily. If her family practice these steps in short calm sessions, her days of being super excited to get out of the crate will be a memory.

We wrapped up this in home Omaha dog training session by shooting a Roadmap to Success video. You can check it out below.