I have a 3 year old dog who we adopted from a friend because he was fighting with his sister so much. We have been having some issues with him. Please help.

Question

Hi There,

    I have a wonderful 3 year old dog who we adopted from a friend because he was fighting with his sister so much. (They were both adopted from a shelter). When he first came to our home, he responded with growling and barking at anyone who approached us or came to the house. Within a week we had him in training and things improved dramatically. He still gets "cranky" when a loose dog approaches me on a walk but I am able to deal with it and he always remains in his space. I have started with a new trainer to improve my confidence with loose dogs and he is really doing quite nicely. We've even had a puppy jump on him with no negative response. Our big issue is that he is afraid of the sudden noise of snow falling off our roof and will tear off door casings, eat cat doors and other things. Initially he was afraid of being crated but over the summer we have worked diligently to make the crate a fun, safe place.

    He readily goes in it when the children are making too much noise and spends a lot of time of his own free will in it. We have worked to get him in the crate for safety while we are work. We were quite successful until the snow began falling. With the first stressful day, he broke out of the crate. Our new trainer has given us some nice suggestions for improving safety and right now there is plywood on the metal door to prevent breaking free & injury. Unfortunately, he is chewing away at it. My greatest concern is that even if we find a way for him to remain in the crate safely....all of that stress and frenzy of trying to get out, can not be good for him. In my mind, the only real long term solution is for him to learn to deal with the stress of the snow falling from the roof (which can be a slow 2 day process). Is there a way to do that? I know there are tapes for thunderstorms but I don't know how we would ever assimilate the noise coming from the snow falling from the roof...not to mention that sometimes there is a vibration that accompanies the noise. This is a wonderful family dog who is responding wonderfully to training but the winters are becoming difficult. He's chewing to get out even when the snow isn't falling...it seems that the benefits of our hard work is slipping. Any suggestions you may have would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks

Accepted Answer

What your dog is displaying is a form of separation anxiety. Ed has written an article on Dogs that Break Out of Crates. There is a link at the end of that article to more information on separation anxiety.

I know it is possible to desensitize dogs to sound that are under our control, but I can’t honestly think of any way to desensitize your dog to snow falling off the roof. Dogs that have had separation anxiety or sound sensitivity can improve but in many cases it’s a lifelong training program. These 2 issues (the sound and separation anxiety) typically go hand in had. I own a dog that has a form of this, and she can now safely be crated without issue but we buckle a bark collar on her every day. She lies down and relaxes now, because through several years of being consistently handled she has learned what to expect. I would say it took a solid year of working on this issue before I felt that she was really feeling better in all situations while crated. I will also add that I have owned this dog since she was 8 weeks old and she arrived here via airplane with an extreme reaction to being crated. She was hysterical in the crate if she couldn’t see us in the same room. Maybe something happened to her on the trip or maybe it’s just her temperament, we’ll never know. We handled it with an aluminum crate and a bark collar. I would have used a muzzle for her if needed but she didn’t try to chew when she was crated. Here is the collar we use here, Tri-tronics Bark Limiter.

I hope this helps.

Cindy