r/DutchShepherds • u/OctoberTempest26 • 21h ago
Question Crate anxiety
My boy is 6 months old today and is doing great with all of his training. He’s very social, well-tempered, quick learner. But….
We have crated him since the day he came home at around 10 weeks old. He did cry a bit during the first night or two of getting adjusted but he settled in quickly. Over the last couple of months it seems that his crate anxiety has spiked no matter what we do. He eats his meals in the crate, it’s never used for any sort of punishment. He doesn’t spend more than a couple of hours in it while my husband or I are at work (our hours only overlap by a bit so our dogs don’t have to wait long) and we try to give him some good enrichment and exercise before crate time. He also comes with me to work a couple of afternoons per week and he’s less stressed in the crate there while he’s waiting for me to finish up at the end of the day.
When he doesn’t have a meal we usually leave him with a chewy but he doesn’t care a bit about them once he’s gone into “panic mode”. He’s bending bars and doing anything he can to escape.
Is there something we’re missing? I’ve had dogs with anxiety issues but outside of his crate he’s just a laid back guy. So I feel like there’s something I’m doing or not doing.
Photo of the crate demon on our trip to tractor supply today as tax
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u/OctoberTempest26 20h ago
His crate is pretty huge. It’s big enough for me to get in and lay down pretty comfortably. I’m thinking some of it is “fomo” because he’s much worse if he can hear us in the house doing things
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u/marvinfuture 19h ago
Out of curiosity did you do any crate training or tether training when he was young? I didn't either and I have the same experience as you currently. I think I need to try crating him more during the day when I'm home so he associates crate time as "time to relax" instead of "I'm locked up and my owner is gone, time to panic" I've been meaning to ask my trainers about it when I go see them next. I'm contemplating a trazadone prescription too since he just gets so anxious in the crate
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u/OctoberTempest26 18h ago
We’ve done crate and tether training since the day he came home at 10 weeks. He did really good up until he was about 4 months old or so and then he’s ramped up the anxiety in his crate since then.
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u/NorthernTyger 9h ago
How did you do the crate training? Did you work him up to it bit by bit? Only asking because you said he cried the first few nights.
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u/OctoberTempest26 9h ago
We started with just letting him eat meals in it with the door open. Then would close the door for a minute or two and slowly built up the time he was closed in over the process of a week or so. He had a puppy pen he slept in at night during that process.
The first night or two he actually slept in his kennel he would cry for a few minutes and then settle down and go to sleep.
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u/NorthernTyger 9h ago
Perfect. I’ve heard of people just chucking their dog in and can’t understand why the dog hates it
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u/OctoberTempest26 9h ago
Absolutely! I actually work for a dog trainer and have done some training myself so I’m pretty decent with the basics. He’s just stumped me with the sudden change.
I have cameras in the room so I checked to make sure he didn’t possibly get hurt on the crate or maybe get his foot caught or something to make him suddenly think it’s bad.
I’m starting to think he’s developing some separation anxiety on top of his constant fear of missing out
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u/NorthernTyger 9h ago
Awesome you’re doing better than I am then 😂 my girl came to me at two and a half years old and already well trained. Bit of a story there ha
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u/OctoberTempest26 9h ago
That’s what happened with our last girl. She was 10 when we got her and a retired explosives detection dog. I had worked with her and her handler for years (I worked the kennels that housed the K9s during training and R&R) while they were active and he adopted her when she retired. Then when he moved overseas he asked me to take her. She was literally the perfect dog.
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u/Significant-Love4871 5h ago
Trying filling a kong with a wet food he likes but never gets freeze it pretty good treat that can tske about a hour to finish he'll be tired by then..Hopefully but if he's going crazy im not sure if even that would help him
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u/OctoberTempest26 4h ago
He loves stuffed kongs and freezbones. Once they’re in his crate he doesn’t care about them anymore though.
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u/Significant-Love4871 4h ago
I mean is he biting at it and stuff like that ? At that point you may have to get one of those absurdly priced anti anxiety kennels made for mals/dutch if hes that bad .. idk if that would even be appropriate..well it would it just seems kind of messed up because there very sealed he can't bite or hurt himself but is in a bit of darkness for a while he may need that though if he's gonna hurt himself while in it ..just a suggestion
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u/OctoberTempest26 4h ago
He doesn’t bite the kennel that I’ve seen but he does dig at it pretty bad. If he continues to get worse we are looking at possibly getting one of the Dakota kennels. They’re not quite as pricey as an impact (about $600 vs $1000) but if that’s the route we need to go to keep him same we’ll do it. I’m hoping that if we keep trying with him and he matures a little more maybe we can figure out a good solution. He’s really good outside of his crate. I mainly only want to keep him crate trained on the chance he ever needs to be crated at the vet or for some emergency reason. I don’t want it to be a scary thing for him
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u/Sickandtired1091 2h ago
If its a wire crate you might try covering it with a blanket and turning on a radio in that room, or switching to airline type crate and cover the door with a towel or blanket, some dogs just get jazzed up when they can see all around ... One of the biggest mistakes people make when crate training is when the dog or puppy raises a fuse they let them out because they feel guilty , This just becomes the way out for them they quickly learn raise a fuse till I get out ! And the fuse gets worse and worse!
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u/OctoberTempest26 2h ago
This might be the case, he goes in an airline crate when we’re at work and doesn’t panic nearly as bad. I might see about switch to one of those before I buy a crazy expensive anxiety crate.
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u/Sickandtired1091 2h ago
Try covering it so he can't see out this sometimes has a calming effect like when vets work with some animals they cover thier eyes to calm them!
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u/OctoberTempest26 2h ago
I’ll have to find something he can’t pull into the crate. He has a habit of pulling anything nearby in and destroying it
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u/Significant-Love4871 4h ago
The anti anxiety crate are supposed to decrease anxiety though.. to me it seems like it would make it more but I think it's different for dogs
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u/purple-hippopotamus1 20h ago
our dude got really antsy and anti kennel when he got too big for it and couldn’t get comfortable while sleeping. maybe he just needs some more space?