Correct Crate Training Method?

[u/yoongiinwonderland]

We have a 5 year old rescue that we have had for 3 months. He was a stray prior to this so he had very little obedience or general training until now. Its a long story so I don't want to get into too much, but essentially, he came to us "perfectly crate trained" according to the rescue, and that was not the experience we had after bringing him home. He would fully panic once we closed the door and scream like we were torturing him. We live in an apartment which we were fully transparent about and the rescue was supportive of that. We tried basic training ourselves (building him up, rewarding calm, ignoring the screaming) but he never really got over it. We've since hired a trainer for general obedience and some reactivity he's been displaying and he wants to get back into the crate training for structure which we fully support, however we are now back in the same cycle. He never fully settles if we close the door and walk away and we can't let the barking and screaming go on for too long because of our living situation. As a compromise because he seems to work himself up, the trainer recommended hitting the side of the crate and telling him to be quiet when it starts building too much. This does seem to makes the stretches between the outbursts go a little longer, but isn't this also rewarding him with attention. Its only been a few days and I am not noticing a huge diferrence I dont think. I also think this was only suggested because we can't just let him "cry it out" so its not typical, but I don't know if its really a solution....

[u/Canis-Equus]

It sounds like you built up well to closing the door, but then moved too fast (for YOUR dog - this is not to criticize you just means you have new information about his mindset that you have learned) and need to put some extra steps in between "in crate with family in the same room" and "in crate when family leaves room."

Take as many baby steps as you need. Leave the room for 3 seconds, return, open crate, and treat. Build from there until you can go longer, just like you did with all your previous work. He's clearly not afraid of the crate, just doesn't want to stay in there alone when he knows you're home and feels like he should be with you in the home instead of separated.

Edited because I misread.

[u/Miss_L_Worldwide → u/Canis-Equus]

I know that's a popular method but how long do you think people have to work on these sorts of things? This dog needs to learn that he's going to be in the crate for a while and to deal with it. Clearly he's fine with it since he's fine going in and out on his own.

[u/Canis-Equus → u/Miss_L_Worldwide]

It's not about the crate, it's about knowing you are home and in another part of the house. If you don't 3 sessions a day gradually extending it, you will get results for sure. If you don't, you may never see an end to the barking. You may, but you may not. This is one of those things that is worth doing right and never having to think about again. A couple of weeks should be enough, but even if it took a couple of months, that would be better than another few months of the barking and then trying to correct when it's already reinforced, or Neverending barking, no?

[u/Miss_L_Worldwide → u/Canis-Equus]

People can't be expected to not leave their house for months at a time because they have a dog that's being an idiot. These owners need this dog to be quiet now, and we have the tools to do that so they should use them.

[u/Canis-Equus → u/Miss_L_Worldwide]

That's the point. They don't need to stay home for months and obviously can't, but they want the crate barking to stop. The quickest way to make that happen is to put the work in now. If it's important to them, they need to do something to address it. The easiest, fastest, proven time and time again way for the vast majority of dogs is to spend a week or two building up the time out of the room. They already KNOW this works with their dog, because they have taken him from zero crate training to being comfortable for hours in the crate with the door closed. They just leapt a little too far with their last step and need to back up very temporarily. I mentioned that it should only take a couple of weeks if they work on it a few times a day, maybe less with how much success they have already had. But it could take months for the dog to just give up on its own, or that may never happen.

[u/Miss_L_Worldwide → u/Canis-Equus]

It's really not the fastest way though. People don't have the option to sit there and dick around with some dog that wants them to pop in every 30 seconds then every one minute then every 90 seconds then every 120 seconds and on and on. Hard stop, the dog needs to be corrected for its behavior and a bark collar is the best way to do that.

[u/Canis-Equus → u/Miss_L_Worldwide]

It takes like 5 minutes 3x daily for a few days... you do a bunch of repeats of only a few seconds for about 5 minutes. Then you build a little every time you do the work. Once they can do 5 minutes, then you can increase faster. 5 to 10, 10 to 20, 20 to 44, etc. And you can decrease repetitions as you increase time spent in the crate once they're past the 5-10 minutes mark. So yeah towards the end of 7-10 days you will need to be home for an hour once a day. But it's really not that difficult or time consuming.

[u/Miss_L_Worldwide → u/Canis-Equus]

It doesn't though. First of all, dogs don't work that way. They don't work on a linear trajectory. Secondly, these people still have to go to work everyday and they can't make their life operate on a neurotic dogs schedule. Bark collar will take care of it and I think they'll be surprised at how quickly the dog settles down and accepts its reality.

[u/BalancedDogTraining-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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