Reign Of Terrier
I know humans are typically your subject, but this is a relationship question, so I hope you'll consider answering it. I have a new puppy (an 8-pound terrier mutt). I eventually want her to sleep in bed with me. However, she's not toilet-trained yet, so I "crate" her at night in the laundry room (in a small dog cage). She cries all night. It's heartbreaking. Please help!
--Sleepless In Dogtown
We call dogs "man's best friend" and treat them just like our human best friends -- if at 11 p.m. you say to your BFF, "Wow -- wouldja look at the time," gently remove her beer from her hand, and usher her to her cage in your laundry room.
Crate training, recommended by vets, breeders, and the American Kennel Club, involves confining a dog to a "den" -- a cage or gated-off area -- with her bed and her favorite toys to dismember. However, the crate is not supposed to be used for punishment -- as a sort of Doggy San Quentin -- but, say, for times you can't watch her to keep her from using the $3,000 leather couch as a chew toy or the antique Persian rug as an opulently colored hand-knotted toilet.
The problem you're experiencing in crating your dog at night comes out of doggy-human coevolution. Anthrozoologist John W.S. Bradshaw explains that over generations, we humans bred dogs to be emotionally dependent on us. Not surprisingly, dogs miss their owners, sometimes desperately, when they are separated from them -- and other dogs don't seem to fill the emotional void. In one of Bradshaw's studies -- of 40 Labrador retrievers and border collies -- "well over 50 percent of the Labs and almost half of the collies showed some kind of separation distress" when left alone.
Fortunately, puppies can be trained to understand that your picking up your car keys isn't human-ese for "Goodbye forever!" Bradshaw's advice in "Dog Sense": "Pick up keys, go to door, praise dog." Next: Pick up keys. Go out door. Come right back in. Praise dog. Next: Go out for increasingly longer intervals -- and "go back a stage" (timewise) if the dog shows anxiety.
And good news for you: You probably don't have to spoon with your dog to keep her from feeling separation distress at night. My tiny Chinese crested now sleeps (uh, snores like a cirrhotic old wino) on my pillow, resting her tiny snout on my neck. However, back before she had her bathroom business under control, I went through the crying-at-night-in-the-crate thing (actually a gated alcove by my office).
I felt like the second coming of Cruella de Vil. Then I remembered something about dogs: They have a sense of smell on the level of superhero powers. Maybe my dog didn't have to be in bed; maybe near bed would do. I snagged a big see-through plastic container (maybe 4 feet long and 3 feet high) that my neighbors were tossing out. At bedtime, I put it next to my bed and put my dog in it with her bed and a pee pad. She turned around three times, curled up, and went to sleep -- after giving me a look I'm pretty sure said, "Hey, next time you're gonna throw me in 'the hole,' gimme some notice, and I'll menace the mailman and chase the neighbors' bratty children with a sharpened Nylabone."
Maybe try putting a piece of your clothing in with puppy. The smellier the better. Think what was worn to clean the bathroom, mow the lawn or workout clothes.
Diane Smith at December 19, 2017 11:05 PM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2017/12/reign-of-terrie.html#comment-6634966">comment from Diane SmithThat's a good idea, Diane, but it's actually not enough.
Amy Alkon at December 20, 2017 4:42 AM
Make room in the bed room for the crate
lujlp at December 20, 2017 1:21 PM
On the subject of crating though.
When I first got out of the Army I moved in with my mother for a few months.
She had a dog, and had I told her to crate train him when she first got him, she didn't listen until she started going back to work and had to leave him at home all day. Because he would trash the house with his anxiety. By that time it was too late.
I had his crate in my closet. He chewed the bottom of the opening enough to force his head past the gate. At that point he bit into an area rug and pulled it out from underneath my bed. I had custom built a frame out of 4*4s & 2*6s for my CalKing, it weighted about 150 lbs.
Once he had dragged the 12*15 foot area rug unto his cage he used the bunched up mass as leverage to force his body out of the cage.
He then proceeded to chew/claw a hole thru my bedroom door, a hall door, and my mother's bedroom door as well as cause such damage to the back door that I had to shoulder block it open and shut.
lujlp at December 20, 2017 1:35 PM
That's why I had a crate in the bedroom and a crate in the living room. My dogs so far, as puppies, didn't cry when they were crated at night on the floor right next to me. During the day, while we are at work, the pup was moved to the crate in the family room next to the sliding door with a view.
RigelDog at January 20, 2018 4:42 PM
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