I am the proud owner of a gorgeous 10 week old husky named Remi Lou. I feel bad complaining because she is really a great puppy. However, the past few nights with crate training have been a nightmare. I've read over 20 blog posts, forum posts and website regarding what to do and what not to do when crate training a puppy. The only detail all of them don't mention is "what to do when crate training in an apartment." I live in a high-rise and although my walls aren't paper thin and I'm lucky to have neighbors with dogs, my very vocal pup has done nothing but whine and cry at night.

How do I train my puppy to enjoy her crate and not be so vocal when I'm surrounded by neighbors in an apartment and not upsetting them in the process of letting her "cry it out?"

I dont live in a appt. so idk how much help i can be. But my suggestions is maybe talk to them and tell them whats going on. Other than that she has to get used to it. Somethings you can try to help her calm; throw a blanket over the cage, i did this for koda when he was young and he seemed to like it, made it feel more like a den. As he got older though he didnt like it. You can try to keep the crate in ur room so she can see you, if she already is in he room maybe try moving it out, maybe seeing you makes her excited and wanting to play. Also during the day try giving her a frozen kong or something like that in her crate so she feels comfortable in it. Hope this helps. Im sure someone else will chime in who lives in appt though.

We live in a condo too and that was one of our main concerns when we brought Gus home... who had pretty bad separation anxiety, and was not crate trained at all.

What do you do with her during the day? We had to bring Gus to daycare. (1) he was too young (4mths) to be staying at home all day for that long. (2) he had BAD separatoin anxiety and would hurt himself trying to get out of his crate. and (3) he screamed whenever we left him alone, in or out of his crate.

Despite his aversion to his crate, we knew that crating was important for him whether he was to stay in a crate during the day or not. So we only crate trained at night during bed time. We started with his crate in our bedroom. Practically touching our bed (Our bed is very low to the ground, so when i'm sitting in the bed, he is basically eye level with us). And we would just keep the bedside lights on so it was dim, and we would stay up until he fell asleep. We didn't pay any attention to him. At first, he would be very anxious in there, and i would stick my fingers through the bars to touch him or just let him sniff me. Once he fell asleep, we waited for a little while, then turned the lights off and went to bed. At the beginning, he would wake up EVERY NIGHT at 3am and start whining. I tried hard to ignore him, but after awhile, i would sit up and say loudly, "AH-AH! Sleep!" I know you're not supposed to do that... but he would instantly stop whining, and plop back down (with a BIG sigh haha). I never let him out though. We kept doing this and slowly moved his crate out of our bedroom. Our condo is small, and his crate is now in the living room, but it is basically RIGHT in front of our bed still so he can still see us perfectly haha. He does go in there willingly now, and even goes in there to sleep without us telling him to. Once in awhile, we don't even close his door at night, and he'll still be sleeping there in the morning. Just be patient!

Try the kong or any chewy toy that will soothe her. We wrote a letter for all our neighbours (with a cute picture too ) to let them know of Gus's separation anxiety. We included our contact info for them and told them to let us know if he was bothering them in anyway.

I'm not sure if your puppy has separation anxiety, but for us, we keep Gus in a gated area of our condo during the day now. It took us a long time to get him to that point. And we have a dogwalker that comes to take him out once a day. At 10weeks old though, I don't think she has separation anxiety. She's just being a puppy

Thanks Eric for your advice. I have read a lot of people toss a blanket over which is something I haven't tried yet. I'll be sure to add that to my list of things to do tonight.

Maggie - currently my boyfriend stays home with her during the day but he is a contractor so when he leaves for a job, she will be crated. I'm considering putting her in doggy day care but I haven't made that decision yet. Her crate is in my bedroom right next to my bed so she can see me. I've tried ignoring her when she whines and she too wakes up at 3 am every night now. I take her out to relieve herself but then she won't go back to bed and wants to stay up playing. When I put her back in her crate she cries. My fear is she will wake the whole floor up. I haven't yet tried sitting with her until she falls asleep though so that is something I will try.

Yesterday I froze peanut butter in her kong toy which she loved so I'll have to try throwing that in her crate at night as well.

Thank you all for your great advice. I know it takes patience - which I keep reminding myself and my boyfriend.

I know the "Just be patient" advice is easier said than done haha The first few nights of Gus, I thought I was going to lose it completely! The stress of possibly pissing off your neighbours makes everything worse too. Then i realized that we really needed to slow down our crate training. Gus is a very anxious boy though.

Another thing I would suggest is to do more crate training during the day while your boyfriend is at home too. Feed all her meals to her in there, drop treats in there randomly, and praise her whenever she goes in. On weekends when we were home, we would encourage Gus to go into his crate whenever we could. If he was taking a nap, we would put him in his crate to nap (with the door open at first so he didn't start to panic). I would put him in there, and then sit at the door of his crate and just scratch him so he was comfortable in there. If he wanted to come out, I let him but i wouldn't acknowledge him. No praise, and no punishment. Just nothing. Then one day when we were vacuuming, he ran into his crate all by himself to lay down. It was one of those "OMG!!!!! It's working!!!!!" moments haha.