Sudden Crate Drama – Advice Needed Pleeeease!

[Theresa & Duncan]

We had a really awful night light night with our pup, so I’m hoping for some advice to avoid Act 2. Duncan is 6 months old (today) and for the last several months we have had the same bedtime routine. We put him up on our bed when DH and I go into our room. My husband likes to stretch out at the bottom of the bed before sleep, so Duncan and I cuddle for a bit and I usually drift off. When the hubby is ready for bed, he puts Duncan is his crate and we all go to sleep. However, last night was a completely different story…
 
Duncan wouldn’t stay on the bed for our cuddle (which probably bothered me more than him). He was walking all over the room. We finally got him to settle on the bed for a few minutes, and then the hubby went to put him in his crate. No matter what we did, he would NOT stop crying, whining, and barking. We took him out to potty, we talked to him, we ignored him, we gave him a stuffed Kong – NOTHING worked. Even when he was first getting used to his crate as a tiny pup he would settle down after a little while, 20 minutes at the most. We finally started ignoring him, and at 2:30 AM he was still awake and crying. He did have exercise that day – we actually took him to the park for a romp a few hours before bed time. Has anyone experienced this sudden crate panic, and has anything helped calm your pup? I am worried that this may happen again tonight and I am not sure what to do :(

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Theresa, Does he seem sick in any other way? This seems odd to me and my first thought was maybe he was either sick or very hot. Did you look in the crate....could a spider or something have bitten him and he was scared? I will be interested to see what other say.

[Theresa & Duncan]

Hi Laurie, thank you for responding. Duncan was sick last week, but we took
Him to the vet and he is much better. He has been eating and pooing, and was not really acting sick in any other way. I can look in the crate and make sure it is spider free. It's worth a try because he actually seemed scared if the crate and it came on very suddenly.

[Gail and Bailey]

Just yesterday there was a discussion in the Puppy Madness Group about a similar situation.

The discussion is titled....Crate Hate--Behavior Change.

There may be some helpful info there for you.  Good Luck.

[Theresa & Duncan]

Gail - This was SUPER

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

If he doesn't appear to be feeling sick, I would go back to your regular routine tonight.  When he goes into the crate I would not take him back out or give him anything that he might construe at a "treat" (like the stuffed Kong).  That's just about the age when many of them test the boundaries, and that could be what's going on here.  Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[Katie and Sophie]

Our Weimaraner Jade did this once.  We had a similar bed time routine and she always went into her crate when it was time to without a problem.  Then one night when she was probably around 6 months she just decided she didn't want to be in there.  There was no obvious change in routine, but something made her decide that she just wasn't going to have it that night and she sat in there and cried and cried and just didn't want to calm down.  Of course if she was out of the crate she was fine.  I still don't know what it was about that night, but it never happened again.