Am I crate training wrong?

Question
Hi Kristen,

We have an 11-week-old female Lab mix who's been home with us for 3 nights now.  The first night we tried to teach her to go in her crate but she did not want to.  We ended up just putting her in it and closing the door (we did praise her when she was inside and gave her treats both before and after closing the door).  She whined, yelped, and barked so much that we were afraid to bother the neighbors so we ended up staying up with her all night outside of her crate.  Upon learning that the neighbors couldn't hear her, we put her in her crate on the second night (again, she wouldn't walk in by herself, no matter what we put in the crate).  This time she barked and whined but we ignored it and it stopped in about 10 minutes.  She also spent her third day mostly in the crate while we were at work (I came home twice, every 3-3.5 hours to take her out) and she hasn't had any accidents in the crate yet (the longest she's been in was 4 hours last night from 2am to 6am).  But, we seem to have a problem getting her to go in the crate or even staying in there when we put her in and don't close the door.  We've set it up with toys, chew bones, a nice, comfy blanket, and we know she has plenty of room (we bought an extra-large crate with a divider and she has about 1/4 of the crate to move around in right now, and that's plenty of room).

I want to know if we're doing it wrong and we're teaching her to hate her crate.  We do not punish her by putting her in it and we always praise and treat her when we put her in.  Is it a matter of it being too soon or spending more time with her trying to teach her to love the crate?  She only whined (no barking) for about 2-3 minutes at 2am when I put her back after her walk, and about 3-4 minutes when I left for work this morning so that part is getting better (less separation anxiety).

Thanks!

Answer
You are doing just fine. If you haven't already, try showing her a treat and tossing it in the crate to see if she'll go in after it. If she will, practice doing this several times throughout the day WITHOUT shutting the door behind her. Show her the treat, toss it in, say "go in your crate," or "kennel," or "bedtime," or whatever you want to use to mean she is to go in the crate. When she goes in, praise her!! She'll find the treat and that will be her reward. Then, if she wants to come back out, that's perfectly fine. If you do this enough, then it's not going to be as big a deal when you DO have to shut the door behind her. When you do that, though, give her another treat or two (or several pieces of her kibble) through the openings in the crate after you shut the door. During the day, I'd give her something to chew on, like a Nylabone or a Kong that's had peanut butter or something smeared on the inside and frozen overnight.

Continue to ignore the barking/whining/crying and it will eventually stop.