I'm a big fan of crate training as it's for way more than just potty training. Ferdinand was horrible - it was like he was going through his terrible twos for the past month. We talked to his trainer and she recommended crarte training. At first we tried putting him in there in our bedroom at night with a night light. That failed miserably as he NEVER stopped barking. After a week of that, we put his crate in the laundry room with a towel over the sides (so he still had air flow from the front) and turned on the fan for white noise. I put pee pad, folded to fit, on his chenille pad on the floor of his crate in case he has an accident. He doesn't ever bark in there anymore and is being really good about going outside. The crate is an XS crate, so he just has enough room to turn around and stand up. Whenever we take him out of his crate, we immediately take him outside.
His trainer also said that if he's really bored he'll have "selective listening" and "selective learning" problems. So we got him a couple puzzle toys to keep his mind stimulated and take him on 30 minute walks, and also try to take him one new place (like Home Depot, etc) every day. Since we started doing all this, he has been like a dream and doing WAY better. I was always told not to take him on walks until he was vaccinated which is why he wasn't going on walks before, but I found out he's vaccinated enough to be fine around other dogs.
__________________  Britta
...and Ferdinand too  |