I've just bought a gorgeous little pup (turns out he is a jack russell/pug cross0). He is 11 weeks old, and he is paper trained. My friend mentioned crating, but I am not sure what this entails. Can anyone give me some hints and tips please? Any general obedience and puppy training tips would be great too. Thanks.

when we got millie we crate trained her (shes  aspringer x so med sized), she was trained to go in her crate for 'nap time' lol! etc

Her cage is 'her space' its where she feels safe and also her' time out' to reflect on things like if shes been naughty, i can say time out and shegoes straight into her cage etc - she feels safe and secure there

i put her in there from day 1,  i got her very young 6 weeks, her mum was very young so had enough, she was supposed to be in there at night but iw as very naughty and let her sleep on my bed lol!!  which was fine as she just slept and felt really safe, and was dry all night from 6 weeks old!!  obviously we had the accident  in the day but it only took a few weeks and she was toilet trained.

feed them in there, let them sleep in there, if necessary put the crate in your room in the night, and in the kitchen in the day etc, when you go out, pup goes in the crate etc - i was fortunate as she was never in there for longer than half an hour a day - somedays never - because she came everywhere with me, still does.

mistake i made as well (alightly off topic) was using newspaper - imo it just confuses them - so thats another thing with the next pup, !!

you learn from each pup, we never used a crate before millie, it works well, the next pup will have the crate, millie uses it now rarely as she so well behaved now, thanks to a training techniqe that someon on another forum told me about, brill!

obedience - i had my millie sitting at 6 weeks, she was intested in food that i had in my hand so she just automatically sat to see me bcause she was so tiny lol!!  so i enforced it by saying sit, 2 weeks later we had down perfected, then stand - shes now 1 year old and she can do distance conrtol, lots of tricks, heelwork etc - shes competing in agility this year when we have trained more, i would also like to do obedience comps too.  Be persistant but make it fun!!  dont do more than 5 - 10 mins a day with sucha  young pup, use play as well, with a toy and make them sit, give them the toy etc - if they mess up - dosent matter my trainer just said too me go '"oh dear, no big deal! " in a happy voice and try again, no point getting annoyed with the dog dosent get anywhere - they dont understand

hope this helps
suze

i have two bitches which i crated from a pup and still do now, with the older of the two i let her sleep in it and feed her in it i also put a peice of my clothing that i had worn in the crate aswell as a teddy for something for her to cuddle up to. the younger bitch is a daughter to the other bitch mentioned so i just kept her in the crate with her mum not ideal though as now they cant cope with  being apart when one goes for a walk etc. i got a dog pup on the weekend and im not going to crate this one over night like i do with the two bitches im going to get him used to the crate for when we go showing or he needs to be out the way for a few minutes he'll sleep in a dog bed in my room at night. not sure why ive chosen to do this though but ill see how it goes.

crating didn't work for us, we tried it for a week but Leo was still howling...... now hes contained too two rooms and hes much happier, however if i got another pup i would try it again :)

He only howled because he knew that the minute he did, you were going to go downstairs, let him out, and sleep on the sofa with him!  :P   :D :D

Loved the photo of him with AUNTIE Taz... maybe when the kids have gone back to school we can have a puppy get-together some time?

I have never shut mien in a crate until they were happily using it as a den when open.  If your confining him to a room at night why not have the crate there as his bed, open.  Put his treats in there feed him there etc.

That way you will be able to shut him in it when travelling or going away.  mine are never shut in one at home, but have been very good in them in hotels, visiting friends ans at shows when I need the loo, or while showing another.

I think crating is fine if not abused.  I have a multi dog household, and have a 4ft crate left open in the kitchen.  The toy breeds will actually choose to go in there when they want a sleep or timeout from the big dogs.  I do put youngsters in there with door closed for eating.  They are obviously fed more often than the adults, and it stops the older ones from stealing puppy food.  But I believe the secret is in how long the crate is closed for.  When people complain that pups have fouled the crate, I would suggest they have been crated for far too long.  Used sensibly they are great.  Last month I had a girl operated on for Inguinal Hernia, and was told to restrict her exercise.  She was obviously let out with the others to go up the garden, and toilet, but I didn't want her racing round at her usual pace. I was pleasantly surprised that she accepted crating with no problems, she still had the others around her, and seemed fine as she could see all her pals.  The crate was already familiar to her, and she was perfectly happy.  She was crated for an hour or so, several times a day, and it went so smoothly, and I was able to obey vets orders!

same, we used it to restrict our boy when recovering from a torn cruciate that he had had an op on. he's mental and overly stoic so would have kept running about on it, dafty :rolleyes:

I have an adult dog that's not normal - there's not a grrr in him so I put our puppy in a crate at night for the first two months to keep her from tormenting him. It was in our room with the rest of us (I used a Silent Traveler car crate so it was completely quiet and didn't rattle at night ;-)) During the day I prefer using a play pen so there's an area for bed, water, toys and a toilet made from a tray with turf in it so the pup gets used to going on the same surface, or weather permitting in my conservatory. When I'm home I like giving my pups free run - as long as it's in the same room as me. That way I can teach them how to behave in the house. I can catch them chewing on furniture, shoes, anything inappropriate and swap it for one of their chew toys. This has worked really well for me as I believe they learn from the start what's theirs and what's not.

One bit of training advice I see people miss in puppy and training classes is rewarding good behaviour. In puppy class my pup got a reward for watching me or for calmly settling. Often dogs that settle quietly are ignored. Make sure your pup gets more attention for being good than being naughty. :)

Jack russells can learn to like the sound of their own voice so teaching a quiet command while the pup is very young will be a great advantage for you later as well. ;-) Good books for general advice are Gwen Bailey's The Perfect Puppy and if you like to get more in depth my favourite is Ian Dunbar's Before and After Getting Your Puppy.