Doodle Hates Her Kennel

[Becky]

Hi everyone,

Come Friday we will have had Sunny for three weeks and she'll be 11 weeks old, so she's just a little snipper.  And she's just great!  We couldn't be happier with her personality and she's so fluffy I could just die!!  But the problem is, she absolutely HATES her kennel!

We used a piece of plywood with zip ties to partition it in half since it's quite large and she's so small.  We also have a drape over three sides of it and don't put any fabric or bedding in it, at least until she's certain of not having an accident.  I'm a stay at home Mom so most of the time there's someone here with her, but occasionally we do have to go out into the world, so into the kennel she goes.  The longest time she's been in there is three hours.  Up till yesterday she cries but it hasn't been too bad.  We'll sneak up to the front door to see how she's doing and we'll hear her crying, even after a few hours.  

Well, yesterday we got home and she was out, the door was still shut so it was a bit of a mystery.  Until I looked closer.  She had used her mouth and bent two of the wire bars and actually snapped one off at the joint and there was a tuft of fur where she had squeezed herself out!  This hole couldn't have been more that five or six inches across.   And what if that wire had punctured her and she'd spent hours bleeding and in pain!  My husband used a bunch of zip ties and criss crossed the hole shut, but the thought of sticking her back in there kind of freaks me out.

She's so mellow, sweet and loving, very low key kind of girl. I don't want to give her some sort of stress trauma and I certainly don't want her to injure herself!  But she has to have a secure place to be when we're not around.  With four kids I cannot guarantee that there isn't a random sock or Lego man lying around to be swallowed.

Please!  I could really use some advice.  I've put her favorite stuffed goose in there for comfort as well as a Bully Stick and frozen Kong with PB for her to have something to do, but nothing seems to help.

[Becky]

Do you think it would be okay to put the kennel in our room so she's not completely alone?

[Haley, Yeti, and Phin]

Yeti's kennel is about 2 feet away from our bed :). We haven't had any problems with him sleeping in our room at all. In fact, it was kind of a life saver a couple nights ago when he got sick in the middle of the night. He started crying and i was able to wake up and take him out before he messed in his kennel. We put Yeti to bed before we go to bed so sometimes he will cry if he can see us out and about but usually we will just throw a blanket over the kennel and it works like a charm!

Yeti came with a car carrier as his "kennel" from his breeder and he prefers that much much more than his actual wire kennel. He has almost out grown his carrier but still tries to sit in it voluntarily even though he hangs out of it.. Any who, its been quite the battle of getting him to like his kennel as much as he likes his carrier.  We try to give him treats in there also his bully stick every once in a while. When we play fetch, we will throw his tennis ball in there repeatedly and phrase him like crazy when he goes in to get it. One more tip might be to put a couple of your old shirts in with it. Yeti has a scented blanket of ours that he snuggles right into when he goes to sleep. :)

[Lori, Winnie, Bob and Indie]

Absolutely! I personally think that dogs like the comfort of being near their humans during the night. And vice versa! :-)

[Barbie]

Ditto! My GR puppy cried constantly for weeks. My boyfriend and I were exhausted due to severe lack of sleep, so I moved her crate into our bedroom, right beside me and we all finally got much needed sleep thereafter.

[Lynda Kamrath]

By kennel, do you mean a metal crate?  I am with her, I do not like them at all.  Nor the plastic ones.  I have them for traveling in the car, but they are not in my house.  I just do not like the looks of them.  So, when I have a puppy, I get a baby's playpen for their home in the house.  My first doodle had a playpen that had a music box and a vibrator on it.  I would wind up the music box and start the vibrator and he would be out in two minutes.  I gave that one away but got another playpen (I think the photo is in my photos) when I got my next puppy.  Gave that back to the woman who had loaned it to me and got another with my third puppy.  We just pulled that one out and will use it again with the new puppy I get next week.  Everyone thinks that crate training is the way to go, but I disagree.  If your puppy is crying and breaking out of her crate, you know she must not like it.  Try something else.

[Susan Christensen]

I rescued Oliver when he was 6 months old and he not only didn't like the crate he was terrified of it. Your Sunny is of course much younger but my attitude was the same as it was when my daughter was an infant. I wouldn't ignore her when she was screaming in the crib. I couldn't force Oliver in the crate. I work all day and have someone that comes in and plays with him mid-day so finding a solution that suited both of us was crucial. I started off by gating off a bathroom and putting a bed, toys in there. After a few weeks I gated off my living room minus anything chewable. He did great. Now fast forward a month and he actually has full reign of the house at night. When i'm gone I still leave him gated in the living room where he happily watches people walking by while perched on my couch! Doodles are SO smart and want to please, other than the occasional stealing of clothing and the daily bath in his water dish Oliver has been amazing!

[Becky]

Just an update.

We've been sitting beside her kennel with a spoonful of peanut butter sticking into it through the bars.  After a bit of timid waffling back and forth, she discovered her love for PB far out weighs her dislike of the kennel!  She got all the way in and greedily gobbled the whole thing up then we threw in a PB filled Kong and she was in heaven!  We left the door open so she would feel more at ease and come and go at will.  We're doing this a few times every day and hoping that she begins to associate the kennel with happy, tasty things!

[Stella]

I have been using a 'Treat and Train' to help one of my dogs like his crate. You can use a remote control to trigger food delivery, or set it to deliver at a secific time interval when you are not there. That way they get to be rewarded, even when you are not around. My guy was afraid of the noise of the motor initially, but he soon got over it when he realized it meant food was coming!!