Leaving puppy alone in crate and burrowing nose in grass

[Sabrina and Bentley]

Hey, we just added our 2nd doodle, Grumman, last week. Some of my puppy training has come back to me from when we brought Bentley home almost 3 years ago, but I'm struggling on two things.

We barely crated Bentley, I guess we were lucky, so crate training is new to me. We have Grumman's crate in our room and at night he goes in there with no problem and sleeps until the first person gets up. At that point, it's crazy barking and whining. I would like to leave him in there long enough to use the bathroom and get dressed, but he's made it impossible. I'm afraid he will pee as soon as he gets out, so this morning, I just sat him on my lap while I peed. Any suggestions on how to work on him not barking/whining in the crate while we are up and walking around?

We don't crate him throughout the day because I work from home. I have been able to get him on a potty schedule so he hasn't done it in the house for a few days. But today we are going out for lunch and he will need to be in his crate. We are going to bring it in the main room since that's where Bentley hangs out when we aren't home. Bentley gets free roam of the house when we are out. Just concerned that he will stress Bentley with his barking/whining while we are gone. Do I need to maybe start doing nap time in his crates while I'm working in a different room? How do you train him not to bark when someone isn't around?

Second issue, and not sure if it's an issue, just new to me. When Grumman is outside, he buries his nose in the grass. He doesn't seem to be eating it he's just maybe sniffing the life out of it, but he's so oblivious to everything around him when he does this. Won't listen to me, pay attention to a toy being thrown at him, nothing. And if I don't stop him, he will go on for minutes. Any clue as to why he's doing this? I don't want him to start digging and I don't really know if he's eating dirt or something when he is doing it, but I'd like to try and nip this habit. I tell him no and pull his head up. He keeps going back down until he's tired of me pulling his head up, then a few minutes later, he's found another patch. I find that he does this more during playtime than on our walks. Thoughts?

Thanks for your advice!
Sabrina

[Tina McNerthney]

It would definitely be a good idea to get Grumman used to the crate while you are at home vs. leaving him there when you leave without having had much exposure. You could use it for nap time, give him a frozen kong and/or another chew toy and leave the room to work for a few minutes, ignoring any whining and releasing him only when he's quiet. Gradually increase to half hour and then an hour. Hide treats in the crate when he's not looking so he makes wonderful, tasty discoveries and comes to associate the crate with positive things.

As for digging, I would love to hear any deterrents you have. I have tried putting very large rocks or objects that are big and safe and not very moveable on places where Baxter likes to dig. It works pretty well. But I also recognize that he's a breed of dog that wants to dig and so I allow him to dig in a couple of places where I don't mind it. As for sticking his nose in grass, Baxter does this, too, sometimes. Not for as long as your pup. It doesn't seem like a problem behavior to me. To get your dog to "snap out of it" you may want to try using a really good treat to distract him and then bring to another area to play some other sort of game. I've found that as Baxter approaches 12 weeks, he's become a bit more resistant. I have heard this is a common stage and so I'm trying not to get too bent out of stage. Don't know how old Grumman is, but 12-16 weeks is allegedly the "anxiety/fear" stage where pups may be a bit more cautious and even, at times, revert to less desirable behaviors. 

[John Wang]

If it makes you feel better, Boomer loves sniffing grass too (and when he thinks he can get away with it, he'll take a big mouthful!)

My fiance works from home. We have a three story townhouse, second floor is the main one and that's where Boomer's crate and pen is. He was already crate trained when we got him, so we would crate him for 30 minutes or so (and always 30 minutes-1 hour before he needed to potty while we potty trained him). We also crated him at night. If he barked, we would immediately take him outside for him to go potty. He learned that if he barked in the crate, we'd immediately take him outside, give him 30 seconds, then go back in. Eventually he stopped his barking at night.

During the day when we get ready to leave for groceries and crated him, he would whine. We would rattle the cage a bit to get him to stop whining (our trainer said it was okay to do this, the dogs will realize if they whine the cage rattles). Eventually he stopped whining. We would also give him durable ROPE toys to play with or a bone full of peanut butter, and leave while he was distracted. Like that he can't tell if we've left the house or are upstairs or downstairs. If he thinks we're home he won't whine!

If we're going to be gone for 4-5 hours, I cheat and play music in another room, usually a playlist that lasts 50% of the time. It tricks him into thinking we're just in the other room listening to music, so he's content. We rarely do this though, only if we might return home late and we don't want potential barking at the neighbors.

To test results, we've set up a camera whenever we leave, and he no longer barks at 5.5 months when we leave the house. Also, we don't crate him anymore, we give him free range of the kitchen and scatter his toys around. He's content to play or nap there, and hasn't tried to jump the fence barrier yet (whew!)

[Deb's Yarrow and Schatzi]

I don't know about the grass thing but as soon as I wake up, I still come downstairs and let Yarrow out to pee before I empty my bladder.  I'm 100% sure that I won't have an accident in spite of some discomfort.  Yarrow has never had an accident but her need to run outside and go seems a little more urgent than mine.

Yarrow likes the feeling of having a pebble in her mouth.  She's always finding them and I keep telling her to drop it and leave it.   I think I just need to keep on it and she will hopefully outgrow the habit.  She has so many other things that are designed for her chewing pleasure - but she likes rocks.