Day Two of Deciphering a Dog

Today, I attended a writing seminar from 9 to 3.  Toby stayed at Petsmart Day Care to avoid any crate anxiety.  When we arrived, I told the staff present about his crate behavior, the reason for him being there.  They had a couple of good suggestions.  Buy him a plastic crate — the enclosed kind which makes the dog feel he is in a cave.  Or put a blanket over the crate thus transforming his wire crate into a tent cave.

I had great expectations he would have a wonderful day.  Well, he may have regarded it as a wonderful day, but I was disappointed.  Since I knew they put the dogs in a kennel for their individual treat time, I should have been wiser.  Since I had already told them about his crate anxiety,  they should have been a bit smarter as well!  The blame is not entirely mine especially since they refer to treat time being in a “private room.”  We all lacked foresight.  At day care, the owner may choose for his pet to have a treat or not.  I chose a Kong filled with treats topped off with peanut butter for his treat today.  He ate the peanut butter, but left the treats in the Kong.  Apparently, they store the dog’s leash and collar next to the crate which is theirs for snack time.  After eating the peanut butter, he reached his collar and tore it to shreds!!  He did not swallow any of the leather collar as they think they have all the pieces.  Thus, if he ever goes there again, he will not have any treats.  If he would eat a leather collar while crated, what would he do to a blanket covering a wire crate?  This is worrisome for leaving him in an enclosed car for very long!  My car has always been my dog’s crate on wheels.  As long as the weather is not too hot, my dog goes everywhere with me.

I need a doggie psychologist!

From Doggie Day Care, we moved to the training room at the front of the store for our second lesson.  The dogs were taught to hold still for examination accomplished by holding a treat at his mouth without letting him have it while you touch his ears and paws.  Toby did so well at sitting still, I used the hand motion for stay and walked around him saying “stay,” and he stayed!  The teacher complimented the Intermediate maneuver.  I think it was a fluke.  The second objective was to stay close to the owner while walking.  The teacher asked if we understood what walking with a loose lead meant.  With only two of us in class today, I,  a smart Alec, threw the leash over my right shoulder with Toby on my left side and walked around the room with him walking perfectly with me.  SHOCK!  We had never done that before!  The norm is for me to be dragged behind him. 

The next part of the lesson was to go to an aisle in the store and practice sitting still while being touched and walking on a loose lead.  Toby, being so interested in the products on the shelves, paid no attention to my pleas for “Look at me” or “Sit” which were last week’s lesson and he performs admirably under less distracting circumstances.  But, in Aisle 11, that learning is down the tubes.  I eventually had him walking fast, almost running, with me down the aisle.  Then I told him, “Easy, easy,” and he slowed down.  It would seem perhaps he has had previous training, but chooses to ignore what he has learned.  Or maybe, after training four dogs, my voice is authoritative and understood?

Deciphering Dog Life

Dogs have problems to figure out too.  (Or is it my problem to figure out!)  It appears my new 3.5 – 4 year old rescue dog has his issues.  He doesn’t like being left in his crate!  My crate, though adequate for a 73 pound dog, is not as large as his foster mother’s crate for him.  Her huge one suffices as a room in itself!  He had no problems being crated in her house.  Of course, three other dogs were crated at the same time, one within a few feet of his crate.

The night I first brought him home, I told his foster mother I would be away for about 5 hours the next day.  Since his crate, food, and water are in my master bathroom, I planned to shut the bathroom door and not crate him.  She said, “I would not do that if I were you.  I did that and he ruined my door.”  So I suggested maybe using a baby gate and not shut the door.  She responded, “That is exactly what I did.”  He ruined the doorway and pushed the gate out.  Oh.  So I crated him.  No problems emerged the first few times I needed to leave the house and crate him.  After having him for a week, I came home to find him chewing on the crate and salivating profusely with a puddle of saliva around the crate.  The next day, he went back to his foster mother’s for a week while I traveled.  It was an exciting homecoming to see her and his foster siblings again.  As I prepared to leave, he came to the door wanting to go home with me!!!  He has bonded!!!

The next week, he heard the car as I parked in the driveway, looked out, saw it was me, and his foster mother reported he went berserk.  He jumped all over me when I entered, even reaching my face for kisses. Once he jumped from the side into my ear and almost sent me tumbling.  He has SPIRIT!!!!  Yay!!!!  I had worried he might be mad at me for leaving him, or he might not be interested in going home with me.  There was no need to question his devotion!  He could not wait to go out the door with me!  I thought the foster mom and I would have a little chat, but no.  We had to hurry on our way home!

The next morning, I had to leave him for 7 hours.  I gave him a Kong full of Kong treats.  When I returned, there was a lake of saliva around his crate, and his fluffy crate mat was balled up at the end of the crate (as usual) and the treats were broken into small pieces all over the mat and bottom tray of the crate.  After he left the crate, he went back in, pulled out the mat full of crumbs and dragged it to the living room where the treat pieces tumbled everywhere.  He couldn’t be bothered eating them in the crate, but he gobbled them up from the floor.  When I picked up the mat, it was sopping wet.  He had not peed on it; it was saliva.

Soon I will be attending an all day seminar and realized I could not crate him again that long.  My local Petsmart here has a doggie day care.  I called to book him in.  I needed to be out a couple of hours today and decided he may as well have a brief stay there this afternoon as well.  His Pawgress Report at the top testifies to his good behavior.

I have known I need to test him for short periods of time alone in the house and gradually extend those freedom periods.  This afternoon I saw my across-the-street neighbor sitting on her porch.  I went over to chat for 15 minutes as our first test.  He passed with flying colors.  I need to begin extending that time with, hopefully, equally good results!

If your pooch has experienced crate anxiety, I would love to hear how you conquered it!