Should You Use Crate Training for Separation Anxiety?

It’s a common suggestion for others to tell guardians to crate their dogs with separation anxiety. This is done mostly with the goal of preventing destruction of the home - doors, windows, floors. But is this good for the dogs?

It actually is in general not a good recommendation. This is due to the reason behind the dog’s destructive behavior. These dogs are panicking and doing everything they can to get to their perceived safety - back with their people. When these dogs are confined more strictly into smaller crates, it can increase their panic and in many cases lead to additional problems like the dogs now harming themselves trying to break out of crates.

There may be some exceptions to this rule. The best way to find out is to work with a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT), who can help do live observation assessments of your dogs to determine what is the best set-up for your individual circumstances.

For some dogs we can set-up a confinement area, so the dogs can still move relatively freely but have limited access to select parts of the home. This can be accomplished in different ways such as closing doors to some rooms, or using ex-pens or baby gates to surround the dog into a particular area.

We also have specific strategies for training for confinement areas to make sure if they are used that a dog is comfortable in that area - that is, we’re not simply moving dogs there and letting them panic or attempt to break out. We make sure it’s a positive, comfortable, relaxing area for the dogs first.

So how do we ultimately prevent destruction of the home if we are not recommending crates? We use a combination of not leaving the dog for more than he can handle - therefore not pushing him past his upset-threshold and not pushing him to the panic point of exhibiting destructive behaviors, or extreme vocalizations, urinating or other behaviors - and performing training to gradually increase your dog’s comfortability with more and more alone time.

This approach protects your stuff and home from destruction, and it helps dogs stay relaxed enough for the training to help them process the learning needed to achieve higher durations of alone time. Since we help the dogs remain below a level of panicking, they won’t feel the need to perform anxious behaviors, which is exactly what we want.