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I’m looking for some advice regarding my dog and his sad, pathetic separation anxiety. I’m going to apologize now for all the  but I wanted to have all the bases covered.Pickles is a little over a year and a half. He’s crate trained to the point that he will go into his crate, a bit unwillingly. He doesn’t see it as a safe place, and I don’t think he ever did. When he was at the shelter before we got him there was a sign on his pen saying he was an “escape artist,” as in, he would bust out of his kennel the minute anyone opened the door an inch. When he was at our vet’s getting his cherry-eye operated on, in the additional notes section our vet listed him as an “exuberant escape artist,” as he would consistently push his way out of the crate he was in. How embarrassing. He freezes up and we carry him to his crate and place him in front of it and eventually convince him to go in. When he is crated, he turns into a drooling mess, constantly licking the crate walls. His neck and chest are usually wet after coming out of the crate. Feeding him in the crate doesn’t really seem to make a connection with him, but maybe we haven’t been consistent enough with it. He’ll rush the crate to eat the food, and will even let us shut the door up behind him. But the second he finishes eating and realizes that he is locked in, he starts drooling and moping. He has always done this, in our old places, and in our new house. I don’t think it is the stress of moving, anyway, as we have been in and out of the “new” house for the past 8 months renovating it. Pickles helped. We also keep the crate stocked with smelly things that smell like us (shirts, pillowcases, a blanket). We’ve never used the crate as punishment, but I think being away from us is punishment and we are in a rut. Any treats and water that are left in the crate with him are disregarded until we come home or let him out. Then he runs in and gets his treats and shows them to us and eats them. Then he goes into the kitchen or into the crate and drinks a lot of water, leading me to believe that he never touched it while we weren’t there. The crate became a moot point about two weeks ago when we got home from grocery shopping and the dog was at the kitchen door to greet us. We were perplexed when we saw that the crate door was not open. Oh wait, no. The bottom latch was undone. And the crate door was bent slightly. Meaning Pickles pushed his way out of the bottom of the crate door. The next day we tried crating him again to see if this would be repeated, and left for about 30 minutes. Came back and he was still in the crate, but his nose was scratched a bit from pushing up against the crate door’s pointy parts and trying to unlock it again.  We started leaving him loose in the house to see if that would alleviate his stress (at this point we thought maybe it was more crate-related?) He has ripped the trash bag coverings we have over the door windows (we moved in a bit ago and haven’t had time to buy appropriate window things) trying to see out of the doors. Everything else in the house is untouched. This has continued for the past couple days. Tonight we came home to find evidence of Pickles’ great jumping skills, at least. The inside of the doorframe is scratched from about 6 feet down to the ground. There were paw smears all over the door. At the top of the door too. There was a bit of drool on the door from him licking the doorframe and the door (similar to what he does in the crate). I don’t really care if he damages the doorframe or chips paint, as that can be repaired, but I don’t want my dog, in his wild flailings, to injure himself with a bad landing or bust through a door window or something equally horrible. He had a scratch on his belly from god knows what this evening. I am considering picking up/borrowing an airline kennel crate of an adequate size, as that doesn’t have as many pointy parts. Would confining him yet again make this worse? I work eight hour days, five days a week. My boyfriend is in grad school, but can spend some time at home and can sometimes take the dog in to his studio while he works. My parents have offered to watch Pickles, as in I drop dog off on way to work, but I don’t think that that would be an everyday realistic possibility. Thoughts? Again, sorry for the long post.
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Jan 2, 2011 01:25
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 00:08 |
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Helpful! Thanks! I will be purchasing that book now. And working on all of those things. Maybe he can stay at my parents once in a while while we work on it so it doesn't exacerbate the situation in the midst of trying to train him.
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Jan 2, 2011 02:40
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a life less posted:
Thank you! I will start doing some of the basic crate (re)introductions RIGHT NOW  Pickles doesn't know that there is some turkey hot dog and string cheese in his future.The only thing I worry about with the crate are that the latches have small pieces of metal that poke inwards. We may modify that with a grinder so that they are not a risk if he does rub against the door (which is how he escaped before/scratched up his nose). As far as his confidence goes, he will sleep in another room if he falls asleep and I leave. If he wakes up, it's really a coin toss of whether or not he wants to find out where I or boyfriend went to. At that point I'm not sure if he's just too tired/lazy to care, or he is confident that we are just in the other room or upstairs. There have been a few instances where we have gone up to bed and left him in the living room. It took him about half an hour to come upstairs. So I do have some hope there. If he is wide awake though, he is usually coming to see what I'm doing. He has gotten MUCH better about being glued to our sides. He doesn't always follow us from room to room anymore, and now if he does he will usually go back to his chair or his bed and lay down after he is convinced that I am not leaving through a door/jumping out a window/getting food out of the fridge. Again, he used to be worse but I think he's started to understand that other room does not = gone forever. He still checks in from time to time though, possibly to see if I'm going to the dog treat shelf. It's really when we leave and there is no one there at all that he goes berserk and panics. Today, I sent off an email to the trainer/behaviorist at the local SPCA that we took obedience classes at to see if she does home sessions or can recommend someone who does. I liked her though, she did a lot of Nothing in life is Free, though we never touched on clickers in the class. Thanks again for advice, I'll try all of this out.
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Jan 2, 2011 18:10
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Pickles went into his crate willingly! Though the target training we had him learn set him back a few minutes during the session. He would look at me and then touch random objects with his nose. Including the crate. And a receipt on the floor across the room (he ran to that one, like aha! I found the thing! No? Awww.) And the blanket shoved in the back of the crate- but I tried not to treat on that considering I didn't want to teach him to put two paws in and stretch out to nose a blanket. So I spread the blanket out and he eventually put all four paws in, then would stand, and then sit  For a forty minute session I wasn't expecting much. We didn't progress to closing the crate door. The first time I tried that he immediately got up and left the crate. So I started over for a bit with just going in and sitting, then treating him just when I would touch the door, so he would get comfortable with that. But he DID sit and lay and stay (for a reasonable time, I didn't want to push it). And with the door open he would stay in the crate and let me walk into the kitchen (only five feet away, but out of sight). But I am out of hot dog now. After I cleaned up the dog drool and hot dog smell from my hands we did another brief five minute session with some banana yogurt cookies. He flipped out more about them then the hot dog. Silly dog. I'll be continuing this when it is time for his dinner!
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Jan 2, 2011 19:20
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a life less posted:That's awesome news! This makes a lot of sense. I considered that I was overdoing it, but he never really showed the typical signs of stress, but I'm willing to believe that those signs I was looking for are when he's pushed to his limit. He would just up and get out of the crate if I made any motion to shut the door. Which I only tried once, and stopped when I saw that he reacted negatively to that. A majority of it was just him repeating going in and sitting, I tried not to press any thing too far. I will definitely make the dinner session a short 5er, and then just feed him whats left of the bowl in the (open) crate. From now on I'll keep the sessions limited to ten minutes though. Thanks! Edit: Not for now, but down the road- as the point is to make him comfortable enough to want to hang out in the crate, is there anything I should do or say to prevent him from leaving it in the middle of a training session? I let him leave freely without saying anything because I didn't want there to be anything negative about this first session, and he had no problem going back into the crate seconds later to get more delicious hot dog. His stay command is good, should I just cement that further and get it perfect and apply it here? impossimole fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jan 2, 2011 |
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Jan 2, 2011 19:49
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Cassiope posted:
I totally had this idea last night and am picking up some new BONUS TREAATS on my way home tonight, to be used only for magical appearances. The only thing is seeing if we can get the point that he wants to chew bones/kongs in the crate. Presently he just madly runs about the house with it in his mouth and hunkers down on a chair. Can't fit that chair in the crate. He loves laying on his dog bed/beating the crap out of it. Do you think putting that into his crate will make any more positive things happen? It is small enough to fit into the crate I think. Worse that happens is he drags it out of the crate BECAUSE THAT DOESN'T GO IN THERE, GUYS. As an aside, when we were doing crate drills before dinner, I must have inadvertently tensed up when he was getting up to leave his crate after sitting quietly for too long or something. Pickles saw and instead of just walking out of his crate he pretended to just streeeeeetch and oh, oops, I'm out of the crate. Imagine that!
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Jan 3, 2011 19:57
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Jan 5, 2011 02:00
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Kiri koli posted:Cute. I've thought about covering, but I'm not sure what to cover the crate with, really. Cloth or towels will get pulled in and shredded. Also, we aren't keeping him in the crate at this point, so I don't know how he will act yet once he's more comfortable in there for any period of time.
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Jan 5, 2011 02:32
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Sudden Infant Def Syndrome posted:
Hey Separation Anxiety buddy. Maybe something is happening during those 10% times that freaks her out and causes her to act out in the ways you described? Have you tried getting video of her when you are absent?
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Feb 5, 2011 02:02
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So, despite our best efforts, Pickles is not-to-be-crated. First, after a few weeks of getting him used to being in the open wire crate, and feeding him in the crate, treating, etc... There came a day when my parents couldn't watch him and I had to work. So Pickles' BIG TEST happened and when I got home from work, he was at the door to greet me. "Oh gosh, Pickles, how did you get out this time, haha!" And then I walked into the dining room where the crate is kept and discovered it upturned onto its front. And when I picked it up and reset it, I found that the top of the door is bent outwards enough that it cannot latch closed anymore. My dog defeated the carabiners with brute force.   He still happily ran into the crate to eat his dinner though. There was also some blood from him gnawing on the latches and carabiners, so after cleaning that up and letting dog out, I went upstairs to bed to relax. And then I smelled pee. Pickles, you peed on my bed.  Then we tried an airline kennel. After a few days of trying to get him accustomed to that, my boyfriend left him in the crate for a 20 minute errand, and came back. And when he came home, Pickles again was at the kitchen door to greet him. At least this time, the crate was not overturned or anything. Just somehow unlatched. So, we decided that we would just work on the SA without the crate in the picture at all, since that seemed to be making it worse, and wasn't actually confining him. He's not chewing on door frames anymore and while he doesn't love it when we leave, he's not tearing down windowblinds and drooling frantically. Though I am sure to close all of the doors upstairs because of the bed incident. So I think it is slowly getting better. Having a dog is so much fun!!!
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Mar 1, 2011 21:20
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a life less posted:I don't envy you. Dealing with SA is incredibly hard. You may be able to manage him with gates, etc if he's better (and safe) while uncrated. You can try picking up a copy of I'll Be Home Soon by McConnell for some better ideas. Yeah. For now he still goes to my parents' house during the days when no one can be home. As far as confining him to one specific area of our house, we let him roam the first floor. He's not a garbage raider, at least not yet, so we trust him enough to not do anything too dumb. He knows not to pee on the furniture. I think the bed was... a special incident. And yeah, I definitely feel more comfortable leaving him uncrated. I think he's more apt to injure himself squeezing out of wire crates or chewing on carabiners. I bought McConnell's book when we started to really work on the SA.  And I have to say, ever since the crate was taken out of the equation a few weeks ago, his anxiety isn't nearly as bad. I also got a DAP plug in around that time. Honestly I have no idea if that is actually making a difference. Maybe it's a combination of both. I should also mention that we're thinking about getting another dog. Not like, tomorrow. In the next few months. Before we moved to the new place, we were living with some friends and Pickles had a constant companion there. He adored Bella and she would come lay on our bed in our room during the day when he was crated. I think having a buddy would help him be calm, though don't get me wrong. I'm not thinking that it will be like a magic solution to the SA. Beyond the SA concerns, I think he needs somebody to play with and wrestle with, besides us. We've got a big yard and space enough for a second dog. Let me know if you think this is a horrible idea.
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Mar 2, 2011 17:27
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 00:08 |
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Ahahaha your video We had that exact toy and Pickles dissected it bit by bit. We found chunks of black rubber in the couch for weeks. He never ate it though. Yeah, I'm prepared for the work^2. I grew up in a house full of dogs, and my dad showed and bred a few litters. (Not BYB, though. Anything but that. One of my favorite moments growing up going to dog shows was when someone was peddling BYB dogs outside of the fairgrounds the show was at.  My dad yelled at them for a very long time and they left.)And, yeesh! A six month and a seven month old? They look like little scrappers. There's no way we'd be getting a puppy. Pickles was 6 months when we got him. He is now almost 2 years. That's a good age. Two. Yeah, I like that.
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Mar 3, 2011 00:49
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