The Puppy Training Podcast
Amy Jensen is a professional puppy trainer, service dog trainer and creator of Baxter & Bella's Puppy Prep - The Online Puppy School. She spends her free time training dogs to be calm, well-mannered household members as well as service & therapy dogs. After receiving many requests to train dogs for people, Amy decided to roll out a comprehensive how-to online training program to help you train your own dog. On this podcast, she shares training tips aimed at helping you be successful on your own puppy training journey.#baxterandbellapuppytraining #puppyprep #theonlinepuppyschool
The Puppy Training Podcast
Episode #226 Your Puppy Needs a Playpen, and Here's Why It Matters
Every puppy parent faces the same challenge: balancing freedom with safety. That delicate dance between letting your puppy explore their world while protecting them (and your home) from potential disasters. What if there was a simple solution that creates harmony for both you and your growing puppy?
Playpens are the unsung heroes of puppy raising. Far from being a "cage" or prison, a properly introduced playpen serves as your puppy's personal apartment - their safe haven where they can relax, play with appropriate toys, and learn crucial life skills. As trainers Amy Jensen and Amanda explain, this management tool creates the perfect environment for your puppy to thrive while preventing unwanted behaviors from developing in the first place.
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When it comes to raising a puppy, two things are important training and management. We manage while we teach the behavior that we are looking for, which takes some time. So today we are talking all about Playpen's one critical piece of management. Welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast. I'm Amy Jensen, founder of Baxter Bella, the online puppy school. Here we are all about helping you create the best possible experience raising a puppy, from training tips to practical tricks, all aimed at fostering a happy, well-behaved dog who truly feels like part of the family. So if you are ready to enjoy the journey and strengthen the bond with your dog, let's get started.
Speaker 1:Hi you guys, welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast. We have Amanda here. She is a trainer here at Baxter and Bella. Hi, amanda, so glad you're here. Today we are talking about play pens. As trainers, we often get asked what kind of play pen should I use and how long do I use it and why do I use it All sorts of things. So today let's talk playpens. So, amanda, I know this is one of the topics that you love to talk about and you get asked this a lot, so thanks for being here. Let's start with why we would use playpens.
Speaker 2:So many reasons actually. We like to encourage clients to use play pens for just basic management. We like to help with behavior modification plans. We like to help with house training. Play pens are just so valuable in so many different circumstances. We kind of think about it more as like a little home for your puppy, like a bedroom, an apartment, whatever you want to call it. That's kind of their space and we give this space to them when we can't watch them, when we can't structure our time with them, we can't train with them, and we just need a little bit of a bigger space sometimes bigger than the crate a place to put them where we know they're not going to have accidents, we know they're not going to get into messes and create terrors around our house. This is just a really great place to keep them so they can't learn bad habits or engage in bad behaviors.
Speaker 1:I love that you think of it as their apartment or their house. Where did you come up with?
Speaker 2:that. Well, I kind of see their crate more as like their bedroom. It's where they sleep. Sometimes they just play with some toys in there. It's a little smaller and then I think of their playpen more as their apartment. They've got their food in there, they've got water in there, they have toys everywhere. They have another little bed to sleep on if they want, kind of like their couch, or they have their crate in there.
Speaker 2:A lot of times we do encourage putting their crate in there to just keep building that positive association coming in and out of it with the door open so much. So I kind of like to see the two as the apartment and the bed the bedroom. So that's what I like to see it as and we want them to be comfortable in there. I love going home and just relaxing in my house, just sitting down, getting on the couch, eating a snack. They like to sit down and chew their bones, get a drink of water, and this is what we want that to become for them, and then we can slowly build that, obviously, or we can just have something around our house, a little place for them to go, where we feel safe that they're there, they feel safe being there, and it's just a good little spot for our dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they can be happy in there. I love that. I think sometimes people see the fence and they think, oh, it's a cage, and cage sounds really negative. But this is really just a place that we're going to help our puppy love and really enjoy. All these good things come to them when they're in their crates or pens and it works for us because it helps, you know, prevent, like you said, some issues around our house that we don't want unwanted behaviors cropping up, like peeing on our carpets or chewing our baseboards or stealing socks. And while we're in the training process, that takes some time. So these make some great spaces to help as we train. Totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally we. We love play pens at our house. We use them a lot. My daughters all have their own bedroom?
Speaker 1:Yeah, great. Okay, how do we introduce play pens to puppies If they've never been in one? What are some good tips for people who are just getting started?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, first off, you need to have the expectation that it's normal. Your puppy is not going to like the crate or the play pen, which is that's what we're talking about. So your puppy is typically not going to like the playpen at first. And this also goes for older dogs too. If you're bringing an older dog into your house for the first time and they haven't been in a playpen very much, this also is going to be hard for them. It's normal. This could be something as simple as a barrier frustration. They're just frustrated. There's this barrier between the two of you and they want to get to you, and sometimes we mistaken that for severe separation, anxiety or severe panic and all they're saying is hey, let me out, I want to be near you. So we want to kind of interpret that behavior more as them learning how to self-soothe and learning how to be alone, which is one of the most important things I think we can teach our dogs in general. So when we're introducing this playpen to them, we need to go in with the expectation that it's going to be challenging at first, and so have the expectation. There's going to be whining, there's going to be barking, there's going to be crying. There's going to be some escape artists and we can talk and troubleshoot that through, but there are going to struggle at first for a minute. So keep up a lot of different positive associations. So keep up a lot of different positive associations.
Speaker 2:On the program, we talk a lot about a 10 to 1 rule where every 10 times we go into a playpen or a crate, we're only shutting the door one of those times and the other nine times are it's open for play.
Speaker 2:We're going in to retrieve treats or toys or chew on a bone, we're using it for training, all sorts of different things throughout the day. So this place is positive in general and then there's going to be those couple times throughout the day where we do just have to shut it and we do actually want to keep that varied as well. That's another important part of introducing the playpen that when we put them in there, sometimes it's only for one or two seconds, sometimes it's for one or two minutes, sometimes it's for one or two minutes, sometimes it's for one or two hours. So keep that time varied as well, so your dog doesn't create some kind of an expectation that when this door does shut, oh shoot, now I'm in here for another two or three hours every single time. The more varied you keep that, the less an expectation they're going to have around how long they're in there, so they're able to soothe themselves easier.
Speaker 1:One key thing that's worked really well for most people is when they first bring their puppy home, not giving them all of the rain like free reign of their house. If you give your puppy right away, okay, you have all of this space to do whatever you want. Then when we try to scale back and shrink it down to a pen size area, they struggle. So something we like to do is create a Zen den and as soon as that puppy comes home from the breeder or wherever you got your dog from and you're bringing them into your house, they go into the pen area and that's their living space for the first few days. Um, we play with them in there, we feed them in there, we give them their toys in there, but really that's the only space they now know. And obviously we're getting out every hour to go play and do things, but when they're it's off time they're back in that pen and they get to know that space of the house and then they just expect oh, this is my safe space, this is what we do, and from then on we start to give them a little more freedom and a little more freedom, et cetera.
Speaker 1:But that's really helped at my house is the puppy's expectations start realistically versus. Here's my whole house and now I'm going to shrink it back down it's this is the space we start with and most of them if you're coming with a brand new puppy, an eight-week-old puppy, they are used to a pen size play area. That's what they came from, so you're just taking them from their pen that they came from into your home into their pen, their new pen area. They're getting used to that space for the first several days, which works well because their stress levels are high and their stress levels take time to come down, and then we can move forward. I found that that's really helped with puppy crying and whining is that this is just their new safe space and then it's not so troublesome when we try to, you know, rather than trying to scale back, if that makes sense Totally.
Speaker 2:I'm actually really glad you brought that up. I think that is a really valuable way to look at it and and I do think we make that mistake when we come home, we just are so excited to cuddle them and be with them, and that is an important part of it. But when we do need to put them down, don't just put them in your living room and walk away and go do your stuff. Put them in this playpen. I think that, right away, just creating that expectation that this is my space is a really, really good way to start them off. You'll totally run into crying still, we all will so we can totally talk about how to troubleshoot that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's go a little bit into that. Let's say our puppy is throwing a tantrum. How best do we handle that?
Speaker 2:Very similar to our crates. Um, we talk about this a lot in Baxter and Bella. When you go, learn about the crate. Uh, but a lot of what we're doing is there's so much. So one one thing is that 10 to one rule. The other thing is a lot of comings and goings.
Speaker 2:If you're just leaving this puppy in the playpen a lot of the time, they do need to get used to seeing you come and go and come and go, and come and go. And so one of the tips we give is, as you're coming towards your puppy or coming back into the room or walking in that direction, we want to make that coming very nonchalant, very boring, so they don't create some kind of an anticipatory anxiety about your arrival. So keep it kind of boring. And then when they give you a good behavior, like sitting down or calming down or relaxing, then you can pet them calmly, reward them with a treat or reward them with access to you, open the playpen and let them come out, but don't ever engage with the barking or crying. Just keep walking around doing what you're doing. Maybe walk away, ignore it.
Speaker 2:If they're really struggling, you can get closer to the playpen, keep your back towards them or your side and stay busy on your phone or act like you're doing something until they calm down. Sometimes that proximity is helpful to help them calm down, but in general we do want to do a lot of coming and going and coming and going, so they're getting used to the fact that we almost always 99% of the time come back, and very quickly at that. There's only that rare occasion that we do step out and we don't come back for quite some time. But if they have that 10 to 1, once again, with even just our comings and goings, they're going to trust that our presence is more typical than it is atypical and they learn to calm themselves down. So, uh well, and do stay near them. You know, when they're first learning near the, near the playpen, it does help a lot, like we talked about with crates.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's huge. Is that alone concept? Puppies, when they come to us, maybe have never been alone. They sleep with their litter mates, literally. Puppy piles are the cutest thing I've ever seen. Right, they sleep on top of each other. They're always touching someone, and so when they come home and they are in a space by themselves, they're like what am I doing? Like this is scary, I don't know that I can handle this, but it's really important that we teach them actually you can be alone, it's okay, you can still feel safe, and this kind of training with the crates and pens, I think, is how we achieve that. In today's society. It would be wonderful if we could take our puppy with us everywhere we go, but we can't. It's just unrealistic. So there will be times when our dog needs to be alone, and it's really important that we start, when they're young, to teach them in a safe, positive way how to feel safe when alone, totally.
Speaker 2:Totally. I actually think it's one of the most important things you ever teach your dog in general, because we don't want them living a life of fear and anxiety because you're not around. We don't want you being there, the only thing in the whole world that can possibly calm them down, and they can't be calm without you. So don't start this off wrong. You can really bring them in right away and start it off on a good foot to teach them that they do have the capacity to self-soothe and they can be okay when you're away.
Speaker 1:It's really a gift that we get For sure. Amandaanda, what would you say as for length of time? How long do we plan on using these pens? I still use them.
Speaker 2:My dogs are four or five years old and I still use them. I don't use them, obviously, the way I did when they were a puppy, but I I have a playpen out all the time so that if I ever do need to put them in there when there's multiple dogs in the house and we're feeding, chews or meals or something that I just don't want them getting into each other's food or getting in fights of any kind or creating bad habits around resource guarding or different things, we'll separate them into these playpens. We'll separate them into these play pens. Other times I will totally just use the play pen when I want to go take a nap and I don't want my dogs near me and I don't want them on my bed. I don't want them to accidentally wake me up. This is a great place for them to go. Or if I've got to run to the grocery store and they're having issues that day, or we're just having a bad day, I can put them in the playpen and trust that my house isn't going to go awry. They're going to be okay. It just gives me a lot of peace of mind to have access to one, even as they're older.
Speaker 2:When they're younger, we're using the playpen a lot more for a lot of different things. Typically, on average, we want to kind of follow potty, their potty routine as our time goes, as our time management, for how long they're in there. So that could look like taking a nap for one to two hours and then out for a potty break. Maybe a little bit of training, and if we want to put them back in the playpen right away and they're not napping, they're not going to be able to hold it as long if they're not napping. So kind of track where your puppy's at with potty and take them out in 45 minutes or so to do another potty break. You can use this while you're cooking dinner and then, when you're done cooking dinner, pull them out and feed them dinner or feed them dinner in there with the door open. You can just use this all the time.
Speaker 2:I would use the playpen based on what your family's needs are and anticipate the dog being in there for the amount of time you need them to be in there throughout the day. I wouldn't give yourself any unrealistic expectations that you need to have your puppy out of the playpen a lot of the day or they're going to be sad or mopey if they're not with you, because it's just not reality. The playpen can be used so much throughout the day and as needed throughout the day, and leaving them in there is actually really good for them. So if you don't have the bandwidth or the time or you've got so much going on in your life and you do need to leave them in there, just make sure you're getting adequate needs met exercise, potty breaks, food chews for their teething, a little bit of play and training and they'll be fine to be in that playpen, based on what your needs are.
Speaker 1:I find this is especially helpful for families with kids, especially little kids or younger kids that have high energy and are active and moving around the house a lot Playpens, baby gates, any kind of division or separation you can create in spaces or dividing your home. Think of dividing your home into boxes. It can be helpful so the kids can play on this side and the puppy can play on this side. I can see that that really helps with safety issues around the home as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and behavior modification. I mean how many of you have seen your dog jump on your toddler or bark at your cat or chase your cat around? I mean this playpen. If they're in there a lot of the time when their kids or the cat or whatever is around, they can't engage in those behaviors. Therefore they never learn those behaviors, so we don't even have to deal with them. So this can be a great way of preventing those behaviors as well. To your point of toddlers and other things running around that we don't want them getting into I also hear a lot of people say I want that calm puppy that just relaxes.
Speaker 1:I find that by using play pens or barriers and, you know, minimizing the space my dog has access to and giving them their favorite chews in those spaces, they learn oh, this is chew time, this is when I lay down and I relax. Or this is nap time, this is when I lay down and take a nap, and so they can be positive in that way as well, totally for sure. Okay, let's talk about best practices and a little troubleshooting, because I know sometimes there's a lot of different play pens out there, a lot of different types on the market, and we have a lot of different types of dogs and sizes of dogs. So what are some best practices and possible troubleshooting that you've talked about with clients recently?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, escaping is one of our biggest issues, whether it's escaping through the bars. If you have a barred playpen, some of the puppies are small enough to just fit through the bars. If you have the little X-Pens, there's so many different types of X pens. One that we talk about a lot on our program is called the midwest play pen, and it's fantastic. They make different heights depending on your dog. But it is an x pen and some dogs will totally just skill that, sucker and get right out and that can be really frustrating for a lot of people. So there are so many different ones. If you go to our products page, you can look at different play pens that we recommend. So kind of play around. Don't lose hope if your dog escapes a little Midwest play pen. There's tons of other options out there and I would give them a shot because this play pen really is valuable. So playing around and experimenting with what you can to see if we can make it work, it's worth the effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and other things you can do would be like feeding your dog through the wall instead of reaching up, and over to prevent them from wanting to jump and start to climb, but I know some puppies really are just really good escape artists, yeah. So yeah, there's different types on the market. Another option would be to tether your puppy. You could keep them on a leash and use some management that way. But I find that being able to have that barrier in place really is nice, especially with kids in the home.
Speaker 2:That can be helpful.
Speaker 2:But yeah, there is a higher potential of them getting into or practicing behaviors that we don't want them practicing.
Speaker 2:But to your point, I mean all the things I talked about were all management right, and you just brought up a good point that there can be a training aspect to escape artists, where we are helping them and training them to stay in their playpen when they have the impulse or the urge to escape, to stay in their playpen when they have the impulse or the urge to escape. And that takes time. It takes a lot of what we talked about at the beginning, where we're getting them comfortable just being behind the barrier in the first place and then building some kind of an impulse control to not jump in the playpen or scale the playpen or get out in any way and so rewarding that calm behavior, rewarding them down low, where they're at, and not up high. So rewarding that calm behavior, rewarding them down low, where they're at, and not up high. A lot of different tips and tricks can go into that for helping train them to want to stay on all four paws in the playpen.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks, amanda, for being here and talking all about playpens. I think that was super helpful and informative. If you guys have more questions on this topic, feel free to reach out to us. You can contact us via our website, baxterandbellacom. Thanks for tuning in to the puppy training podcast. I hope today's tips help you feel more confident and excited about raising your dog. Remember, with a little patience and consistency, you can create a loving bond and a well-behaved pup who's a joy to have in your family. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow puppy parents. For more resources, visit Baxter and Bella online. Until next time, happy training.