[BayleighL]

Originally Posted by Kathylouise

Dang. As I've mentioned, I have my first puppy and even though I'm not a youngster, right now I feel pretty inept.

Morris (17 weeks) is currently raising holy heck in his crate- he had a 45 min walk, a nice session of fetch, ate well and fell asleep. I placed him in his crate 8 min ago, and...

Is it okay for me to ride this out under the cover of my earphones and music? If so, for how long?

Thanks for any help.

Kathy (and Morris~)

I'llshare our experiences so you might glean something for your situation - ornot. But hope this helps. We have had 3 dogs - sheltie, minidachshund and now our little yorkie. We have found crate training to be reallyimportant and different for each dog. The sheltie (which we now recognize was arescue) had a very hard time. If we had understood her psychology better, wewould have done things very differently. The doxie loved her crate and asdoxie's love to tunnel she had a tube blanket and would burrow down. If weweren't careful she'd smell like a dirty sock. lol Our yorkie puplikes her hard-sided crate at bedtime near us and sleeps well but the minutewe're up, she's out! It took us some time to find the right bed/blanketcombo for her and we learned she is AFRAID OF THE DARK! So, a crate cover wouldbe a disaster and anytime she spends the night with a sitter we make sure thereis light. We did like you where she started out right next to us and thenslowly (and I mean inches) moved further away. In the motorhome, shesleeps in her crate but about 4 AM she'll get cold and that is the only timeshe's allowed to crawl in with us. She'll tolerate a crate in the car forjust a short time, but that took lots of training and treats and we leave a specialchew we save just for that occasion. We tend to frequent dog friendlyvenues. For air travel we use a soft-sided crate. She is tiny and isin the cabin with us. That is not her favorite and if she were left alonein it, she has proven she would try to scratch her way out! But with usnear, she does well enough.


Goodluck customizing your pup's crate. I would encourage you to persevere so youhave that option for you and your dog as over years a lot of situations arrivewhere security and safety and sanity need to prevail.


PS When we had our doxie, we also had our big boy cat. When we crate trained her, he was so jealous of the treats that he crate trained, too. He'd do anything for a treat! Hilarious!