Cries in the crate...

Question: Less than a week ago my husband and I adopted a spayed mini wire-haired dachshund and Hanna is 5 years old. My friends are separating and had to give her up. They had another 9 year smooth coated mini-dachshund, Emily, and the two were inseparable. Additionally the couple had 3 young children (3 years old and 1.5 year old twins). Hanna was in a very lively household and was not in her crate often, except at night. I was told that Hanna and Emily stayed in a crate together, but would sometimes also sleep in the bed with the primary owner, who was a woman. I know that Hanna is going through separation anxiety and she follows me everywhere and doesn’t like to be left alone. My husband and I are placing her in a crate when we leave the house or when she goes to sleep and she hates this. She wines and barks all night off and on. I’ve covered ¾ of the crate in a blanket, so it seems like a cave. We placed her food dish inside and feed her in the crate. We also put the dog bed that she sleeps in during the day on a coach in my home-office inside the crate at night. Lastly, the previous owners used a bark collar on her and we use this mostly at night to prevent her from waking up the neighbors. She hasn’t been destructive or chewed anything, but we do not yet trust her left alone in the house. If we didn’t crate her, she keeps trying to jump in bed with us. My question is how can we make her feel comfortable in her crate and stop barking/whining? I appreciate any help or support that you could provide. Please feel free to call me if this would be easier to discuss.

Answer: Good for you for giving these two girls a safe home. Before I share my thoughts I want to point out that it's very likely that this dog is highly stressed by what she is going through. A new home, a new family and a new sleeping arrangement is a whole lot for a dog to accept and even very well adjusted dogs can have a difficult time with life changes like this.

Remember that all behaviors that are reinforced will be repeated. My guess is that Hanna has been let out of her crate for barking and this has reinforced her behavior. Not only that she was severely punished with a bark collar part of the time. This is an extremely lopsided and confusing thing for the dog. I am strongly opposed to using shock bark collars on dogs. They are extremely painful and inhumane and in the case of barking, they don't treat the actual cause of the barking. The use of a bark collar could have made her issues associated with the crate much worse. Barking is a symptom of another problem, so while bark collars may stop the barking at the moment they don't address that there is something actually going on with the dog that is causing the barking. Barking can be caused by loneliness, boredom and stress. Most likely in Hanna's case the barking is caused by stress and also has a reinforcement history, meaning that they rewarded her by letting her get into the bed when she cried in the crate.

The best way to deal with barking in the crate, if it is just because the dog wants out, is to ignore it. This dog is hungry for attention and if you engage her, at all (even by saying quiet or continually going in there) the behavior will not improve. It must extinguish and it will but not before the dog experiences what is known as an "extinction burst" which means that the behavior will get much worse right before it gets better. So, your first choice is to continue to ignore the behavior. Continue to cover the crate, leave a radio on, maybe put Emily in a crate in the same room and wait it out.

The second choice is to not leave her in a crate. You can use a baby gate or exercise pens to make her a safe area to hang out. Maybe make her and Emily an area in a washroom or in the kitchen. Many dogs just stress with the crate and if Hanna has been shocked in the crate, she obviously has a very negative and frightening assocation with it.

Finally, you don't mention how many hours you are leaving her in the crate during the day. All night and then all day in the crate is too many hours crated and you will need to find another way to contain her. However, if you are just gone for an hour or two during the day, that should be fine. But, I would still recommend trying other ways to contain her. At 5 years old she is probably not going to be destructive if you dog proof the area.