Crate training for ... kids?!?

 Planning for are upcoming return to Canada, we are getting our dog ready to come with us this time.  (Last time he stayed with our former landlady, a dear friend of ours who loves the dog and treats him very well.)  Part of our preparations were to buy a crate (yesterday.)  If you know anything about dogs who've never been in a crate, you'll know that they don't like it, and it's a process to get them confident and comfortable to enter their crate.  (See below.)



But we had an unexpected result of putting the crate out in our living room; our two kids transformed into puppies and decided that the crate was a great place to play.  They spend the entire morning today fighting about who got to be in the crate.  We had to make them take turns sitting in the crate, pretending to be happy puppies in their new house.

The one-year-old loves to take the dogs food and spread it all over the floor, so when we put the dog's food into the crate to help him get used to it and start enforcing the idea that the crate is associated with good things, the baby got extra excited and got in before the dog did. It was almost impossible to get the baby out of the crate at that point.  When we did, he was angry.

  If only the dog were this excited about the crate ...

Yes, the dog gets to use his crate, too.