I have a question about my morning routine. I have been trying to remove the whining from my dog when in the crate, and have been sort of successful, but I am trying to do better. My question here is this:

When I get up, I am out of the bedroom 90% of the time before a peep out of Bella, but if she does whine, and it doesn't sound like immanent crisis, I don't come out until it stops. So, now she pretty much waits for me to come out of the room to "wake up," although I am sure she is awake before me. I do a few morning things for myself for about 5 minutes before getting her out of the crate, and then I make her sit, and put her on leash, then out we go for her morning potty. This would be an ideal scenerio, but usually she will whine during the 5 minutes, so I have to reset the clock, so to speak. I have figured out that she always seems to whine when I am in the bathroom, which is the first place I go. I also let the cat out of our bedroom first thing, and the cat usually goes to the food bowl first thing, waiting to be fed. If the dog whines while I'm in the bathroom, I wait until she calms down for a few minutes, then I will come out, not looking at her. I usually will feed the cat after this, and if she hasn't whined by then, I will get her out. So, I have a few questions, actually:

1. Am I doing the right thing by ignoring her, and not making eye contact after she whined, or should I say "good quiet" in a soothing voice? When I walk around and she is quiet, this is what I say to her, so I wander should I mark the good behavior the moment she stops, or a few minutes after, when has been quiet and calm for awhile?

2. She has developed a yawn in the morning when we get out and it concerns me a bit. I will go through the above scenerio, and when she has been quiet I will have her sit, and go to put the collar on. At this point, she will yawn and make a single whine noise at the same time. Today she did this, and I told her "no" and backed off and shut the gate. Then, I grabbed some laundry that I was planning on doing anyway, and went to load it. Well, she whined her butt off after that for a minute or so, but when I got back she was quiet, so after another minute, I went to get her out again, and she did it again! So, I said "no" and closed the door again, and began writing this thread. After about five minutes of quiet, again, I went to get her out, and she did it again!! This time, I just leashed her and took her to the bathroom; I hope I didn't do something bad here, but I wanted to get her out and to the bathroom. Is this yawn/whine her way of trying to control the experience of getting out? Does she think she is training me here?

Thank you all!!

I don't know about the whine, but the yawn is just the built up anxiety of her anticipating you letting her out and you guys doing something. I would suspect the whine at that time is the same thing.

One of my dogs does this and his whine is actually cute. It isn't a long one, just a short little whine and a big yawn. He's wagging his tail the whole way.

A yawn is a calming signal, dogs do this to release stress just as people do.

I wouldn't penalize her for yawning.

I agree with what Cindy said and would not punish.

Some say yawning is an avoidence signal, but I can tell you in my expereince it can be form of anticipation as well. Mine will do it when I am getting ready to take him out for a walk or as we are getting ready to play ob games...I would ignore it.

My dog's anticipation yawn, comes with a small high pitched whine as well, but he is not a whining dog overall.

 Quote: Jennifer Coulter

I agree with what Cindy said and would not punish.

Some say yawning is an avoidence signal, but I can tell you in my expereince it can be form of anticipation as well. Mine will do it when I am getting ready to take him out for a walk or as we are getting ready to play ob games...I would ignore it.

My dog's anticipation yawn, comes with a small high pitched whine as well, but he is not a whining dog overall.

I agree completely. My boy yawns predictably whenever we get ready to go out for a walk or a run in the woods - he looks forward to these activities and while he's usually calm waiting to go out, his yawning starts when I pick up the leash and start to put my shoes on. These anticipatory yawns are often paired with a high-pitched whine that only lasts as long as the yawn does...

~Natalya

Interesting...I thought you all would say the opposite, and now I'm glad I asked.

The "whine" is exactly as you all described; it is almost like the vocalization that we humans make when yawning. I understand now that she is just anticipating getting out, and will not let the yawn interupt the process anymore.

I am a cook, so I work many hours on the weekend. So, sometimes the dog spends too much time in there, IMO. This weekend I worked the morning and evening shifts all three days, which means I don't get enough time with her. I am going to try to find a solution to this. Thank you for the responces, I respect you all greatly!!