Crate Training a Puppy: What Goes In the Crate
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A crate only works if the puppy has a reason to go in and something to do once the door shuts. Crate training a puppy fails far more often from boredom than from fear, and the usual version of the kit, a blanket and a hope, leaves nothing to fill twenty minutes with. This one is a pad that fits the pan, a stuffable rubber toy for the first stretch, a mat for the second, and the treat both of them get loaded with. If you want the wider set, start from the bundle guides.
What goes wrong in the first two weeks
Most people close the door and walk away. The puppy has nothing, notices that, and starts to complain. You come back. The puppy has now learned that complaining opens doors, and you are three days into a habit that takes a month to undo.
Giving the crate a job fixes the sequence. Door closes, good thing appears, puppy is busy for a while, then you come back while it is still quiet.
The pad, the toy, the mat and the filling
The Crate Pads Armor is American Dog's answer to a dog that treats bedding as a project. It is flat and low profile, so it sits on the pan instead of bunching at one end. The outer cover is 1680D nylon ballistic, and it comes off and goes in the machine. Inside there is a 420D liner with poly fiber fill, YKK zippers behind a hidden closure, and corner ties that keep the pad from being dragged into a pile. Sizes run from 22 by 13 inches up to 48 by 30. Measure the crate pan and buy for that, not for the dog. A pad sized to the puppy leaves bare tray at both ends by month five. American Dog items are sold and shipped by American Dog through Shopify Collective and arrive separately.
The Can Toy is the first twenty minutes. SodaPup shapes it like a soda can in rubber, four sizes from a 1.7 ounce Small up to a 14 ounce Extra Large, and rates it for average chewers. Fill the cavity, freeze it overnight, hand it over as the door closes. Frozen is not optional if you want it to last past a commercial break. SodaPup/True Dogs, LLC items are sold and shipped by SodaPup/True Dogs, LLC through Shopify Collective and arrive separately.
The Air eCoin is the second stretch. It is a five inch nylon disc with grooves on both faces, so you can load one side, let the puppy clear it, and flip it. Nylon rather than silicone means it survives a puppy that chews the mat instead of licking it.
Our Freeze-Dried Cheddar Cheese Bites fill both. One ingredient, cheddar, freeze-dried in small batches in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Crushed with a little water it presses into the eCoin grooves and freezes solid; whole, it rattles around the can toy and comes out one piece at a time. Two of the four pieces travel from their own makers, so this kit lands in more than one box.
Why there is no cover in this kit
Crate covers turn up on most lists. They do help some dogs settle, and if yours is one of them a bath towel over three sides costs nothing and tells you within two nights. We would rather you find that out with a towel than buy a fitted cover for a crate size the puppy grows out of in four months. Same reasoning as the pad, in the other direction.
A two week schedule that usually holds
Days one to three, the door stays open. Food bowl goes in the back, pad goes down, nothing closes. You are only teaching that the box is where good things live.
Days four to seven, close the door for the length of the frozen can toy and open it again before the puppy finishes. Stay in the room. This is the part people rush, and rushing it is what produces the dog that screams at minute two.
Week two, leave the room. Start at two minutes, not twenty. The mat comes out here as the second activity for longer stretches, and by the end of the two weeks most puppies will walk in on their own to see what is loaded. Our two week crate plan lays the same progression out day by day.
Take anything edible out when the session ends. A chew left in an empty crate is a chew nobody is watching.
One pad instead of three blankets
Most crates go through a folded duvet, then a cheap fleece bed that gets shredded, then a proper pad. Going straight to a washable ballistic cover skips two of those, and the corner ties are the detail that matters, because a bunched pad in the corner is how a puppy ends up sleeping on bare tray anyway. On the enrichment side, two loadable surfaces cover a twenty minute stretch that one would not. Treat dispensers for crate time compares the toys we carry for this job. Any of our freeze-dried dog treats will fill either surface, and Explore narrows them by protein.
Asked at the counter about crates
Three that come up whenever somebody buys a pad and a toy together.
How long can a puppy be in there?
The common rule of thumb is roughly one hour per month of age during the day, up to a point, and less if the puppy is not yet reliably empty. Night is different because they sleep through it.
Does the lick mat go in the crate or outside it?
Inside, flat on the pad, for a dog that stays put. If yours carries it to the door and drops it, use the mat outside the crate and keep the can toy for inside. Using a lick mat in the crate covers both setups.
My puppy chews the pad. Is that normal?
It is common, and it is why the Armor exists rather than a plush pad. American Dog designed this one for scratchers, diggers and chewers specifically. A dog that is seriously working at it still needs supervision, not just a tougher cover.
Related guides
Three kits that share the same crate and the same cabinet. All of them live on the puppy cluster page.
