Hi everybody,

I've started walking a 6 year old black lab and a 4 month old dobermann. The lab is a true gentleman and very calm. The puppy, as you might expect, is bouncy bouncy bouncy. She's good fun but gets over-excited very easily. Basically I was wondering if anyone had any tips to get her into her crate- she tends to fret when the lab is away so I have to crate her when I take him out (she goes out first and then is crated while he goes out). So far I've used the "hmm there appears to be something ever so interesting in here" technique where I spend about 5 minutes rearranging her bedding and looking round her crate until she decides to check out what is so interesting... but she's clever and she's catching on to my trick! She often just puts her front paws in and then jumps out quickly. The problem is that the lab really needs to go to the toilet and she wants to play. I don't want to try taking them both out just yet because they're both very strong and she tends to jump on his head, making him growl and bark- it can get a bit heated but no full on fights so far. Also is there a way to get her to calm down before I open the crate because she gets quite frantic and I worry she may hurt herself? On the plus side she seems to be calming down a lot more in my presence because I stop playing if she jumps up.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Try feeding her in her crate and giving her rewards (food related) when she goes in.  She'll feel much more comfortable in there then.  Let her sleep in there and she'll soon see it as a comfortable den.

Good luck!

I think she does sleep in there. She's not actually my dog so I'm not sure about giving her too many treats and things. I've tried giving her toys to play with in there but she mainly grabs them and runs out again. I don't think the owner has a command for her to go into her crate and I take her collar off when she goes in in case she catches it which makes her very difficult to hold onto! I'll try giving her one or two treats  but I don't want to overdo it. Any other ideas at all?

Would it be an idea to ask her owner for any tricks to get the pup into the crate at home? You could also ask the owner whether it's OK to give her treats.

If you can't treat her, then can you feed her her normal food in there?  I used to put their food in their crate and it certainly gets them used to it.

Also squeely praise is just as good as treats, I find :-)

when I wanted to go out and put my dog in the crate I used to stuff the kong and get her excited (lots of squealy praise) about getting into the crate.  When she was younger the only time I gave her the stuffed kong was when I wanted to go out. I would stuff the kong with something extra tasty and something that is reserved for just the kong so it remains a special treat. 

not much help but this reminds me of when we used to use the crate and when i started putting on work clothes and using the hair drier, i would find the dog lying in his crate looking sad, as he knew that meant he wasnt coming.he was so pathetc looking.

I have to say with my flat coat I used treats for going in the crate, and it worked a treat (pardon the pun!), but obviously it depends what the owner says. If he was excited when I came back in I sat down at the table and read a newspaper until he calmed down, then opened the crate when he was calm without looking at him/ speaking. But if you're dog walking it depends how long you've got to do it in :) Hope that's some help.

Maybe a special/ favourite toy she gets when she goes in the crate would work as well as treats, depending what she's like?

Well unfortunately it turns out that she doesn't sleep in the crate so it essentially is somewhere she goes during the day when there's nobody in the house. So obviously she's not too keen to go in and she makes one heck of a noise when she's in there. I think I'll just get her an early christmas present of a kong.

She's staying at my house tomorrow night so we'll soon see if she howls the house down... oh dear!

Dobes.....exhauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusting:rolleyes:

Update:

Well... phew. I don't know how you dobe owners do it. For the first day the two of them were more or less ok except when I had to take him out to the toilet and crate her. She screamed and screamed and barked and howled. I could hear her down the street! Then on thursday all semblance of toilet training went out the window. 6am, she peed at the front door and in my bedroom even though I was just about to take her outside. I took her out several times and she wouldn't go. Then she peed on the rug. I took her out several times again and she wouldn't go. Then she peed all the way down the stairs. And today when she was back home the moment she saw me she peed in her crate. I'm starting to get paranoid that it is my fault she's peeing at the wrong times. I don't tell her off unless she's mid-flow and I just clean it up and I prase her when she goes outside. She just is so demanding... and she bullies the poor lab. He's so docile, he just takes it when she bites and pulls at him. I try ignoring her when she's too over excited but she has such bad separation anxiety I couldn't risk the neighbours complaining and possibly having me arrested for animal cruelty... you'd think I was killing her the noise she makes!

Is there anything I can do about it keeping in mind that she isn't my dog? I'm just getting a little tired of cleaning up wee when I know that she's house broken with her owner...

So what do the owners do with them when they walk the dogs ?

Have they thought about a harness for her for walking as that way you should be able to control her if you take both of them out ?

Lucy
xx