Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,


There are signs that are quite visible when crate training is going wrong, however, if you don’t know what to look for you’re going to miss them and it will get worse.  Plus, this was such a common question from my clients, it needs to be covered here.

Most dogs, when properly crate trained, will do very well when crated for a realistic amount of time.  It depends on the problems that you are having how to try first to fix it.

Here are the biggest signals that something is going wrong:

  • The crate is damaged*
  • Wet fur especially on the chest*
  • The crate has moved while your dog was inside
  • The objects around the crate have been damaged*
  • Your dog has gone potty in his crate
  • If you tape or record your dog and there is excessive barking, growling, wining etc. on the tape*
  • The dog bed is in pieces every time you come home
  • Your dog fights you every time you want him to go in his crate

If your dog is doing any of these things, leave me a comment and I’ll try to help you out.

The picture is of my most difficult to train dog.  He’s not motivated by food or toys.  The only thing that I can find to motivate the little monster is that he gets jealous if the other dogs are training and he isn’t getting any attention.  His name is Scully and in many ways, he’s the best trained dog I have.  This is exactly what he does when he doesn’t want to train.  He looks the other way until you train the other dogs enough that he wants the attention too.

I’ve put an * by the signals that may, especially if more than one of them are occurring, indicate separation anxiety.  Leave comments and I’ll do my best to help you out.  I’ll also try to deal with these issues individually in future posts.

Related Articles