The Crate Busting Puppy

[SuckerForHorses]

[QUOTE=FleabittenGray;7658398]
My shepherd mix had very similar behavior after I adopted her. She was initially perfect in her crate, but after a couple weeks turned into a bit of a terror after she got attached to me and developed separation anxiety. Like your dog, she would claw and bite at the bars of her kennel until she dislodged one of the corners and then would squeeze her way out (it still boggles me how she could fit through such a small opening!). To fix the problem I zip-tied all the corners of her kennel. She never tried to escape by messing with the latches, but they did loosen from her antics, so I also used a snap clip to hold her kennel door to the side of her kennel. She has not gotten out since then. After a couple weeks of realizing she could no longer escape, the behavior stopped. It’s been almost a year since then, and she loves her crate now. :)[/QUOTE]

LOL! Our golden is the same as the OPs - loves his crate, goes right in, doesn’t make a peep if we’re home, isn’t destructive in the house…but leave, and when you return, he’s loose in the house and laying on the couch sleeping. :rolleyes:

We also zip tied every edge of the crate and used snap clips, and it worked fine. We no longer crate him though. He was crated to keep him out of the trash, which is the ONLY bad house habit he has. We solved the issue by just putting the trash in a room with a closed door.

[kerlin]

Thanks all for the continued good ideas!

So far, keeping her loose in the two puppy proofed rooms is more or less working out. She’s gotten a few things, but more in the vein of “whoops, should’ve removed that” rather than anything truly destructive. (Though I am a bit sad about the hair clip I lost this morning…)

Distraction does work really well: she’s never left without a meal in usually 2-3 of those treat balls or kongs. She looooves them and barely glances up when I leave. I also keep the freezer stocked with kongs full of frozen wet food and she almost always has one of those too.

Lazy Palomino Hunter, I’m so sorry that your puppy has such trouble with separation anxiety. That sounds terrible. Arya is nervous and upset, but she does not fully panic, thankfully. I have thought about investing in a webcam from time to time, but from surreptitious spying + waiting outside I more or less know what happens. She gets upset and howls for a little while, and then calmly and thoroughly sets to work on the crate. The gaps on her crate were barely 1" wide and somehow she worked her teeth in anyway.

For now, keeping her loose is working. I’ve got some behavioral pamphlets and separation anxiety exercises to work on thanks to recommendations from our excellent puppy class trainer.

My long term goal is to crate her, for all the reasons other posters have mentioned! I think it’s a critically useful skill for a dog to have. We’ll wait a few more months, buy a new crate, and try again.

In the meantime, we’re working on concentration exercises and waiting games and shaping a “place” with clicker training to keep getting her brain focused.

[khall]

Look for the DVD called crate games to get your puppy happy about her crate. Thank you for adopting her!! Rescues are the best.

[kerlin]

Idiot puppy update: she’s getting more destructive while loose. Last week she knocked an extra doorbell ringer off the top shelf of one of the bookcases; I found it broken open on the floor with some teeth marks in it, and could not find the battery. Off to the vet we went for x-rays, which did not see a battery, so I must have removed the battery before putting the ringer away.

She’s also chewed Tupperware, books, DVDs, a crochet project, jackets, a backpack, etc. I feel like every time I put away everything I think she’ll get into - she escalates to something different. We’ve had three calls to the vet in the last 7 days.

We met with a behaviorist at the vet’s office who reviewed everything we’ve done for crate training and interacted with puppy generally. She does not present as an anxious dog, just a smart and willful one. She could still be showing separation anxiety, but nothing about what I’m reading and talking to people about is matching up with her behavior before I leave.

I’m considering getting one of these, in the largest size (48") possible, since I know she can jump 36": http://www.chewy.com/dog/midwest-black-e-coat-exercise-pen/dp/45379 Does anyone have experience with them?

Or is the best bet at this point to do full-on separation anxiety remediation and put her in daycare for the next 6-8 weeks while we work on that?

I am getting really tired of finding things strewn about the living room.

[HUS2318]

I had a Shepard once that would literally destroy his crate every time we would leave. Happy as can be to hang out in the crate all day long while I was home. When I would leave he would find a way to get out…every time! I ended up putting a chain around the door so that if he got the latch to come undone, he couldn’t get a locked chain off his crate. If he were to figure out the combination of the lock I was going to take him to be a circus dog. LOL

[Judysmom]

I went through this with my rottie when she was a puppy. She was horrible in the crate so I gave up when she was about 5/6 months old and just coped with the house destruction. She was really bad. Destroyed my couch, two chairs, crunched up light bulbs on my bed, counter surfed etc.

The good news is she grew out of destroying my house when she was about a year old.

Was never able to successfully crate her though. She had a TPLO when she was 5 and post op I’d put her in a crate, and come home to her sleeping on the couch. LOL.