Hi,

I am not sure if this is the right forum for this question.

We have a 3 year old female Australian Terrier (Dewey) and an 8 month Komondor (Gustav Mahler). Both are gentle with beautiful temperaments, although we have not been a success at housebreaking and the terrier will not not bark unless she has the citronella collar on. Mahler also tends to get into our 3 year old's face wanting to lick her and be with her, which our daughter does not always love considering their relative sizes.

We bought the DVD on creating pack structure and basic obedience. We've watched about half of the pack structure one so far and will finish it this weekend.

Based on the DVD the dogs are now crated 24/7 with no affection etc. We started this Tuesday morning. The DVD moves on to other steps without seeming to tell us how to know when to do so. Dewey goes into her crate willingly and is calm in there.

Mahler hates his crate, we'd stopped using it on the advice of our trainer as she felt that since he cried all night in the crate for more than a week our butler's pantry (5x4 feet) was as good as a crate for him. He never soiled in there and did seem to regard it as a home, until he mastered climbing over the gate and now we can not contain him. If he is in a room with the door closed he will scratch the door without stopping (and I really value my 110 year old woodwork so that isn't ok with me) so I couldn't keep him in a bathroom. So we'd do crate if we were out of the house, leashed to a radiator in our room at night (the iron steam radiators are the only thing in our house he can't move by pulling on his leash). He loved sleeping leashed near our bed, and now is crying most of the night every night in his crate. If we use the citronella collar he whines softly enough to annoy, but not loud enough for the collar. He likes to be sprayed with water. He *only* barks when in his crate, he couldn't care less about people on the sidewalk in front of our house etc.

So we've moved him to the basement. We share a wall with another house so we are pretty sensitive about noise. He now goes into the crate willingly, which is a huge improvement over before.

What constitutes ready for the next step? In and out of crate willingly, quiet the whole time in crate? If so Dewey is ready. What if he never stops crying in his crate? I'm a nurse so I work at 6:45 the two days a week I work and this up all night because of a whining/barking dog is killing me and my husband is not a huge fan of Mahler to start with.

Thanks for any advice I can get!

A few questions:

Have you tried having the crate in your room? Do you feed him in his crate? How long do you let him cry?

With one of my dogs I had to let her cry in her crate for 3 weeks before she realized it did no good. Now she's fine (till she comes out. Oy.) With the other, he figured it out in about 3 days.

The crate was in our room until a few weeks ago. It didn't stop him from crying. He preferred the butler's pantry downstairs to the crate in our room. He is only slightly interested in my husband but is very attached to me.

We now feed him in his crate and he doesn't really eat anything at all. We'd stopped feeding him in his crate since he wouldn't eat there before.

We let him cry all night. Is that ok? I don't want to reinforce the crying by having him think that if he does it long enough he'll get out.

He seems to be a genuine Komondor, stubborn, independent and with low food drive. In the house he wants to be with me, but he had been spending most days very happily in our fenced back yard until we started the pack leader program this week.

He's a little wimpy (the breeder called him "tender" and picked him for us as we have a small child). As a little puppy he was really skittish on different surfaces etc. We brought him to a ton of places and he is now confident on all surfaces, walks outside on a leash with no fear/problems, no fear of people or other animals, goes in the car, boards fine etc. but hates to turn corners in our house. No submission peeing or anything but he is scared of our architecture.

We have a curved hallway and he hates to walk through it. He flat out won't do it a few times a week. He'll go up the main stairs but will not go up the servants stairs which have a turn in them for any kind of food or love. Some days he passes the kitchen radiator willingly, others not, and it doesn't seem to have any relationship to whether the heat is on or not. We have to go through a curve/turn to go down the basement stairs and have had to carry him past the curve twice today, all the pulling in the world with the prong collar doesn't help. Once it is straight down the stairs no problem. God forbid an intruder ever enters our house and realizes that he can get away by going through the curved hallway...

Well I mean, he can't see where he's going with all that hair! Poor guy, I'd be freaked out too.

You are right to let him cry for as long as he cries. Letting him out while he's crying, just once, can take weeks to overcome. It really sounds like you guys are doing the right things, and taking good steps to help this guy out.

The crate he's in, is it a wire crate or a plastic crate? I've found that crate-shy dogs appreciate it if you can create a "Den like" environment for them. This is easiest with the plastic crates, but you can drape a blanket over 3 sides and the top of the wire crate. Just be careful that he doesn't eat it through the wire.

I'm sure other people will have advice and ideas for you. He might just need more nights of screaming his guts out before he realizes "hey, this isn't so bad. I'm not dead. They DO come back for me..."

Have you tried the crate in the butler pantry?

I think it's interesting that your breeder gave you a weak-nerved dog because you have a small child. Please don't leave this dog alone with your kid, and don't put him in situations where he experiences psychological pressure while the child is around. Make sure he knows that the child is yours, and is off limits to him in every way.

By all accounts it really sounds like you've done a great job socializing him, and you should be proud of how successful he has been overcoming his fears. That has happened because of the work you've put into him. It's great to see people proactively seeking solutions.