2 y/o GSD/ Cattle Dog non-stop crate barking

[sondancer1978]

Hello all. I recently adopted the above dog and have seen nothing but excellent behavior in almost all aspects. Although, the dog has immense separation anxiety. One day I left him for about an hour in my room with the door closed. Came back to carpet ripped up under door and scratches all over. Next day, bought a large crate (more than enough room) and made it cozy and have introduced it as a safe place- not a jail cell. He will enter the crate on his own and does fine sitting in it if I’m near by. Although, when I shut my door behind me and leave the house, he barks continuously for at least an hour. I’m not sure what to do… any advice?

 

[mhadden]

@sondancer1978 Go slowly, one hour for a dog with separation anxiety is a lot. Start small with only 1 minutes and you're still insight, just the crate door is closed. Slowly increase time. After you're more than certain that your dog is doing okay, start lenghthing the distances and times until you're eventually out of sight, but still inside the house. If that goes well then try going out the door for a minute. Come back in and don't make a big deal about it, then go give your dog a lot of praise. Once your dog stops reacting to the one minute, up the time slowly. Then wait until no reaction (treat and praise heavily)

Give him safe toys to keep busy. Something like a kong with his a delicious treat. Start training him to be quiet and use a quiet command. Id recommend watching its me or the dog to see different training methods in action. There are a few videos with dogs who have similar problems.

Show your dog that when you leave, you will come back. And treat your dog when you come back so that you leaving will be associated with a good thing bc everytime you come back, you give a very high value treat. Also give a very high value boredom reliving toy that your dog only gets when you leave. And the treat should also be only given innthis situation. You really need to give your dog positive associations with ppl leaving bc its ckear you're dog doesn't have many of or any those

Please go slow, if you work too fast, it'll just set everything back. You have a dog with anxiety. The process is not going to be easy for you, but its much much worse for the dog. Go slow, have patience and remember than even a small improvement is an improvement and you need to give your dog a lot of praise and treats for that. Don't be afraid to take a step back if your dog isn't doing well with the current step, it's not that the training is failing, its just that your dog needs some more time.

Id recommend doing your own research on different training methods for separation anxiety so that you can choose a method that works for your situation. I totally recommend Victoria stilwell (its me or the dog)

 

[notw530]

@sondancer1978 Crate train him slowly. Make sure he doesn’t know when you’re coming back. Do this by leaving him in the crate and leaving the room at random increments (2 minutes, 5mins, back to 2mins, 10mins, 5mins, 10mins, 5mins, 15mins etc). There’s some great YouTube videos out there that help teach you and your dog how to manage separation and crate anxiety.

 

[eront]

@notw530 More importantly, you should return before there's cries. Keeping it at a set random time risks leaving the puppy in a state of stress which we don't allow here.