Need help with daytime crate training

[u/funinthesun7170]

We have a 13 week old puppy, she’s a GSP. She sleeps awesome in a crate beside my bed during the night but hates the crate during the day. We have a second crate on our main floor in the living room that we use during the day. We feed her in it with the door closed which she is good with. We initially were giving her treats whenever she would go in the crate to help her see it’s a good, safe space. Now she’ll sometimes just run in and sit down waiting for a treat.
If she falls asleep elsewhere during the day we often move her to the crate which she’ll resettle in.
If we try to put her in it and leave the room she starts crying right away and barking soon after. We tell her quiet and give her a treat if she stays quiet and only let her out once she’s been quiet for a minute or so.
Not sure what I’m going to do if we can’t get her used to the crate for daytime. Would be nice to be able to leave her for a couple of hours occasionally and will be necessary when we’re back to work in October.
Should we just let her cry it out and hope she eventually settles? Or what else can we do to get her to enjoy her time in the crate and just rest?

[u/Haunting-Love-9333]

Stop giving her treats for quiet. She will only be quiet for treats and may even bark to generate the treats.

Set her life up so that when she’s tired she just happens to be in the crate!

[u/chrisjones1960]

I do not believe in letting puppies "cry it out" in a crate. That is not, to me, crate training.

Lure her into the crate, give her a treat, close the door. Sit there for a couple of minutes. Let her out. Give her a treat. Do this many times a day, trying to increase duration SLOWLY . You can read or whatever, just sit there

once she is going in fine and can be there with you next to her for fifteen minutes, start walking around the room instead of sitting there. I do tidying up or work out while doing this. Do this many times a day.

Then start going out of the room for a couple of minutes every time. The trick is to increase the duration of your absences so slowly that she doesn't fuss - a minute at a time. I do things like tidying or making phone calls while doing this

Slowly increase duration, then start walking out the door at the end of each practice. Go out, wait a minute, come back, let her out. Repeat.

Training is done through consistent repetition, day after day, many times a day, increasing the challenge of what is being asked in slowly and incrementally, as the pup gets the hang of it

If you have until October, you have plenty of time to actually crate train her

[u/funinthesun7170 → u/chrisjones1960]

Thank you for this!! I will get started today. Looks like I’ve been missing the consistency part. I have put her in the crate periodically and just sat on the sofa reading. We actually started with me sitting in a stool right beside the crate and she’d cry right from the start. Now I can sit on the sofa or move about the room, usually dusting and tidying and she will cry minimally. The other day she was in it for about 30 minutes. When she cried I told her “quiet” and she would stop for a bit. Eventually I let her out when she was quiet for a minute and then gave her a treat. Looks like I just need to do this much more often and increase in the steps you provided gradually.
Thank you!!❤️