So I've had this foster dog, Cookie, for 11 days. (I volunteered at the animal welfare society and couldn't leave without one of them. I mean, I'm not made of stone.) He's about a year old, recently fixed, doesn't bark (often), doesn't bite or snap or growl, doesn't have accidents in the house (except for that one random time he lifted his leg on the new couch), and most importantly, loves me and my dog to a ridiculous degree.

The only real problem we're having is that Cookie hates his crate. My dog, Dolly, has always gone into her crate voluntarily. She goes in it to sleep, to chill out, or to escape Cookie's boundless energy. I'm not used to the total reluctance Cookie exhibits when it's time to go into his. (Their crates are side by side in my bedroom, and they only go into them at bedtime.) I show him how Dolly gets a treat when she goes into hers. I leave a bite of a hot dog (his favorite) at the back of his crate and leave the door open for him to get it, but he just lies with his nose at the door and wags his tail, staring at the hot dog as if mentally willing it to magically levitate and zoom right into his mouth. Sometimes he sits and stares at me in confusion, because usually sitting means getting a treat.

Long story short, I always end up shoving him into his crate. I hate doing it, it distresses both of us, and it's counterproductive because he will never learn to like going into his crate if it's surrounded by such forceful drama. I praise him and coo and give him a treat once he's in, but it's a struggle I'd rather not subject either of us to. (The welfare society rescued him from animal control, so it's understandable that he's not fond of going into a cage.)

Has anyone had success in dealing with a dog reluctant to go into his crate? I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks.

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001

Answers

I'm just curious: why are you crating him if he's well behaved in the house and not getting into any trouble?

I'm all for crate training, but I think it's taken too far. In all this "dogs are den animals" talk, I think we've been convinced that dogs are meant to be confined in their dens all day long ... which is just not true. I think crates are great for puppies, and I guess there are adult dogs who are so used to their crates that they don't want to give them up. But crating an adult dog who doesn't want to be crated and who isn't getting into any trouble outside of the crate ... I guess I just don't understand the rationale.

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001

I agree, Beth, that crating just for the sake of crating sometimes seems like a bizarre ritual. I crate him at night because while he's basically a good dog, he's pretty wild. Even after being in the backyard all day, when the dogs play chase and wrestle for hours on end, and after playing inside with me for a few hours in the evening, he doesn't settle down very well. As a stray, there's only so much progress I've been able to make with him in less than two weeks. (We start obedience classes on Thursday, thankfully.) He would be on top of my head wanting to play all night long if I let him loose in my room at bedtime, and if left in another room or to wander the house, he'd be alone since my dog would be sleeping in my room with me, and which would also not be acceptable because he just gets into too much mischief. (Right now he's a "Grab the Roll of Toilet Paper and Run with It!" kind of dog.) Crating him at night seems the most practical thing to do -- except, of course, for the fact that he won't go in on his own. Once he's in the crate, he's fine and falls fast asleep.

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001

We always had dogs growing up, we never had crates.

The dogs, especially when puppies, occasionally chewed stuff, and occasionally soiled the carpet. I guess we just saw that as part of owning a dog.

The first time I heard of "crating" was a few years ago when my friend got a puppy and it turned out she locked her puppy up all day when at work and all night when asleep. I always thought that was pretty cruel to me. I wondered why she got a puppy at all if she was more woried about her Ikea furniture and Purgo floor than her pet's ability to run around and, you know, be a dog.

I can understand using it if your dog is having severe problems with housebreaking, but an accident now and then, or even the possibility of an accident doesn't seem like justification to me.

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001

Maybe a larger crate would help...? I'm thinking you probably know to get a big enough crate, but I just wanted to throw something out there.

Our dog was never thrilled about going into her crate, either. And even though I read that a lot of dogs learn to use it as a "get-away" place (like Dolly), once Arrow's crate-training days were over, she never went near it again. And she had never been in a cage in her life (we got her as soon as she was weaned).

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001

Why not dog-proof another room in the house and allow him to sleep there? Or, suffer through a few nights of hyper dog--but diciplining him when he behaved inappropriately--using time outs, NO's, etc. That way, he'll learn it's unacceptable to interrupt sleeping humans justbecause the boy-dog is bored.

If you feel the crate is a must, be more gradual. Instead of insisting he gets the point in one night, with his treat all the way in the back of it, try feeding him in front of the crate, or placing the treat just inside it.

In either approach (no crate or gradual crate) you'd have to give up having him in there at least temporarily and maybe put up with some interrupted sleep.

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001

When we got our dog we lived in a tiny apartment so we had to ad lib when it came to a crate. There was no room for one, and we had so much crap in this place it was impossible for him to stay out of trouble.

We used a leash. We had an 8-foot leash that we tied him down with. Don't get any strange mental pictures, heh! We took one end and tied it to the bottom of the bed leg, and the other was on him. We figured that way we only had to "puppy-proof" about 8 feet of the room. It kept him from the harmful computer cords and all sorts of other goodies in the room, while also allowing him to sleep under a table to get his "den" fix.

I didn't work at the time, and Hubby did. There weren't a whole lot of times he was in the house by himself. I figure it was probably once or twice a week for an hour or two at a time. We got an animal and knew we'd have to invest some time in him to make him a good pet. When we DID leave, we would tie the end of his leash/lead to a doorknob in a hallway. He had his food and bedding along with water. This allowed him the freedom to move around a bit, while also protecting the carpets while we were gone. (He had a tendency to chew holes, even when we were there. Not to mention the added bonus that unless a dog really has to go potty, they won't go in an area where they're confined.) It was on the tile floor in the kitchen's hallway. Since we didn't have A/C it also made it cooler in the summer, and the heater was closer to that area when it was cooler in the winter.

We tried to get him to sleep in that hallway at first, with the use of a baby gate instead of the leash. For some odd reason, whenever you gate him in or out of an area he whines. He didn't do that with the leash. I'm not sure what the difference was to him.

He's come a long way. We no longer leash him at night. He has free realm of the house that we bought when he was just a year old. We do crate him when we leave, though. I do it more so he's safe, than the house is safe. We have so much electrical crap plugged in everywhere, that if he decided to chew we'd be in deep trouble and he could get hurt. We do leave him outside when we're gone for short time periods, and sometimes even indoors. We mostly stick it his crate.

Hope there's something useful in all of that spew.. heh!



-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001

Dora, we never crated Deeohgee. (I confess, I didn't even know what "crating" was until I read it in Beth's forum.) Carl found her when she was not quite a year old; she'd been living on her own in a wooded area for at least a couple of months, based on a guess by the vet as to how long it would have taken her hair to have turned from black to rusty red from malnutrition. When Carl brought her home, she was naturally housebroken (or someone had worked with her) and a big fraidy cat (someone or several had beaten her -- we could tell by the way she flinched and ran from certain people with dark hair or certain builds). At night for the first few nights, she was fairly hyper, checking to see if I was there. She was a puppy still, prone to chewing, but that ended quickly. (I think she just out-grew it. And she hated to displease me, so if I scolded her, she learned quickly.) Sshe learned that once we went in the bedroom, it was to sleep and she settled down without hassle. One of the things I did was to give her an old shirt that smelled like me to sleep on the first little while. If she tried jumping on the bed, she was immediately removed and scolded (not harsh, just enough for her to understand that this was not a good thing) and I set her back on the floor. After a few minutes of her being quiet on the floor, I'd pay her some attention and reward her with a treat. (Mistake I made a couple of times -- don't reward when you first put them on the floor because they think they're being rewarded for jumping on the bed.)

You might want to leave the crate open and just let him pick where he's going to sleep. If he does jump on your bed or get into mischief, use that moment to give him time-out in the crate. Since the crate is already a "negative" to him, you could use it to your advantage. (I recognize this is a radical thought, but he's already set the pattern -- he doesn't want to go in there. You could use that.) Deeohgee would hate to be locked in something small. And like I said, she's never been crated, has grown out of her dance on mommy's head phase (very fast, just a day or so) and has been a blissfully wonderful pet ever since.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

This may be totally off the wall, but when we got the Great Dane puppy, of course we crated him at night. He never really *liked* it, but soon (around the age of 4 months) he started hating it and whining at night. So we let him out (he was housebroken by then) and then had to deal with him wanting to get in bed with us. Kept us up by putting his front paws on the bed, whining, licking our faces, etc. Knowing how big he eventually would be, we knew we couldn't let that habit get started, so in desperation we brought an old love seat into the bedroom and showed him that was his bed...from that night on, we had NO troubles. Apparently he did not like sleeping on the floor, even with comfy blankets and all. He still uses the loveseat to this day.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001