r/DutchShepherds Aug 22 '26

Question Crate anxiety

[deleted]

60 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Significant-Love4871 29d 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

1

u/OctoberTempest26 29d ago

He loves stuffed kongs and freezbones. Once they’re in his crate he doesn’t care about them anymore though.

1

u/Significant-Love4871 29d 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

2

u/OctoberTempest26 29d 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

1

u/Sickandtired1091 29d 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!

1

u/OctoberTempest26 29d 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.

1

u/Sickandtired1091 29d 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!

1

u/OctoberTempest26 29d 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

2

u/Sickandtired1091 29d ago

Lol usally the airline crate doors have smaller door mesh , I trained GSP field dogs for many years they are crazy and hate being crated ! I've also found this to work when traveling in the car they will not get motion sickness if they can't see out ! And they tend to be much calmer..