[billy0147]

i have a 11 week old lab that i am trying to crate train and house train. i have put toys in her crate and she will go play with them and then come back out. i have fed her in it too. she is fine around it until i shut the door then she starts whining and barking and i put a kong teething bar with some stuff on it in there but she only licked it until she saw me leave when the door was shut. she will bark then stop after a while but she will start barking over and over. is there anything i can do to comfort her?

and when i take her outside she will pee after being in the crate sometimes but comes back inside and will pee again inside in like 20 minutes. how can i get her to finish it all outside

[Lara's mom]

I absolutely know exactly what you're going through!!! I tried crate training both my Border Collie and My Jack Russell. Both attempts were dismal failures. I'm getting a male Jack puppy soon and, I am already suffering from "anticipatory crate training failure."

The sound of a puppy in a crate crying its little heart out "gets me" every time. With my two girls, I listened to each of them cry for a solid hour. By that time, I felt so guilty that I couldn't stand it for one more second and took them into bed with me. The crate got packed up and went to my locker.

My breeder is a great believer in crate training and has discussed it with me in great detail. I'm sure she knows what she's talking about. I just know that when that puppy comes home and I put him in that miserable crate, complete with blankets and toys, etc., and he starts crying his little heart out, I'm not going to be able to stand it!!! I can already see "failure #3" staring me in the face.

My breeder says that you just have to ignore the crying. Good luck with that. I just can't do it!!!