My dog does the same thing. The barking and the pulling on the cover of her crate. She's 6 months as well. I found this website with covers that might be better because they are fitted so it would be tougher to pull them through.

http://www.bowwowbeds.com/cratecovers.html

Mine is an english mastiff/rottweiler mix. Yours sure is a cutie.

More than likely its barking is from "pent up energy" or maybe separation anxiety. Id just try playing with the pup more first, especially right before you have to crate them. take em out for a run, or play, robust enough to burn off a ton of energy, play tug, chase a ball or rag on a rope, use a laser light it they chase those, i mean really wear em out but, not to the point they quit on their own, you want to be the one to say ... time to go inside. Diferent dogs have different prey drive endurance thats something you have to learn to read. It gets longer as they get older usually, till they never want to stop lol. Also, maybe on occasion you have taken the pup out because it was barking? IMHO thats a nono, never take them out until they calm down. & remember the type of dog you have is a "working" dog, so work them, tons of exercise I'd bet cures your problem. Chew toys are great for "boredom" but nothing cures excess energy better than exercise, I have a rotty pup 12 weeks, she gets at least 15 mins play every 4 hours, & 20 - 30 mins at night before bedtime. Although I do not crate my dogs all the time, I also tether them, depending on where I am, eg, if im watching tv laying on the sofa, I'll have a couple chewies for her & let her lay on the floor, i can hang my arm over & touch her (bonding) & verbal correct & redirect if she starts to chew on anything but a chewie
simple activities like this cure separation anxiety. Sometimes the pup just being in the same room with you, tethered to the door is enough.
Maybe this helps
Pretty puppy ya got, should be lots of fun )
BTW if you havent tried them, dogs love "pigears" to chew

Thanks for the tips, Dennis.

Being in the crate for him is not a problem. He goes in willingly and hangs out throughout the day completely on his own. A lot of times he is already in there snoozing when I lock him up for the night. I have to wake him up and take him outside to potty, etc. The problem is mostly in the morning when he wants to be let out. Or even if I crate him to go to the grocery store and I come back- and he wants out RIGHT NOW. His crate time is limited to overnight and maybe an hour or two during the day.

He gets a ton of exercise. Last night he ran around and played in the snow for a good half hour before he went to bed. He often goes to work with me for the day. Or runs errands with me. Basically anything I'm doing, he goes too. Him and my min pin also play all day together. Exercise and stimulation are not a problem. We train throughout the day, go on walks, and play together in the house.

Chews, treats, toys, and things to do are also not a problem. Like I mentioned before, I am a manager at Petco. My dogs have just about every treat, toy, and chew that we sell. He's always got something different in the crate with him to keep him occupied. The amount of dog toys and supplies and crap I own is really quite ridiculous.

I do not believe the problem is caused by excess energy.

At this point, I am not going to tether my dog near me instead of having him in the crate. Like I said, he isn't crated very much in the first place. IMHO I don't believe this is a good way to teach independence. He needs to know that it is ok to be alone in the crate. He can still hear me, smell me, and most of the time, he can still see me. He will learn that I always come back to him. And we do short exercises of me leaving and coming back. He needs to learn to be patient. I can give the quiet command and sometimes he listens to me and thats the end of the story. But when he DOESN'T listen, he needs a correction. And I can't correct him when he's inside the crate. Which is why I decided on the remote trainer. I believe this is simply a case of "I want out, let me out now!". Hopefully the remote trainer I ordered will be here soon.

How long does the barking continue for in the crate??? Are you in a position to ignore him?? I find what works best is ignoring until you get a quiet moment (literally a moment), then let him out. Be very consistent with it, and increase the "quiet moment" times before letting him out. I've found that dogs pick up fairly quick on this, though the process still might take days or weeks.
I don't crate my dogs around me. The dobe we had was crated with the ability to see what we were doing as was my little girl JRT in the very beginning, and to be honest, I find it made the situation much worse. My hubby's OEB and my new male JRT were/are crated away from us, and the crying, barking and carrying on was reduced much faster.
You don't actually let him out as soon as you get home or as soon as you get up in the morning do you? Putter for a while, do other things, completely ignore him until you get a quiet moment - then let him out. And make letting him out as low key as possible. The remote collar may help, it may not, but if you are consistent with requiring silence before opening the door, you should see results.
Hope that helps. Good luck.

Well lately I've just been ignoring him and let him bark his face off. He can go for HOURS...

And I'm trying to make him WAIT. I think I explained more about this in the first couple of posts. He is so ROUTINE oriented that I don't want him to think that every time I come around, I'm going to let him out.

I usually make him lay down and wait before we let him out. I open up the crate and make him down/stay for a few minutes until I let him out. It doesn't seem like that's helping the barking though. Any pointers on that?

I wish I had a place to crate him away from us but I don't have a very big house and I'm limited in the number of places I can stash him : (

You may wanna get the DVD on training with Markers, so you completely understand the concept, then maybe just work him harder on an "off", a stop doing what your doing command, if its completely intolerable, NO is the off switch. If its approved behavior like playing tug then "STOP" or "BREAK" can be the off, (whatever you want is fine as long as its consistent)
theres lots of ways to teach NO, I drop tidbits of food or kibble on the kitchen floor, when they go for it, say a hard "NO" (mean voice), soon as he stops mark it with "GOOD NO" (happy voice) & quickly show him .... you have the treat, this has to be quick, mark the behaviour within 1/2 of 1 second and show the treat in the next 1/2 second, do the same thing ANYtime he goes to do something intolerable, pick up a shoe, grab a wrong toy whatever. once he really understands NO, say it while he is in the crate barking, let him know, thats intolerable behavior with your voice. Go around the corner, when he starts barking hit him with "NO".Otherwise, lol, get real bones, big ones, ones that take him hours to devour, Ive never seen a dog that would bark his brains out when there is a good hambone handy to chaw on. And again back to the exercise, you may think you played enough but if he still has the energy to bark when you bring him in ...... you didnt play in the snow long enough.
GSD's are hella endurance dogs they can go for quite a while.
good luck with this one, sounds tough.
still has to be a solution other than a collar imho. just keep thinking it out.

 Quote: Jessica Pedicord

Well lately I've just been ignoring him and let him bark his face off. He can go for HOURS...

How long do you wait during a silent moment to mark and reward for quiet? I would not at all be waiting for some minutes of quiet -- I would probably be right there, totally turned away and noticeably ignoring him, until he was quiet long enough even to draw breath and whip around all happy to mark and reward for quiet.

Same with letting him out.

I'd be looking for a way to turn on that lightbulb in his head that says quiet = good stuff. And you might have to be pretty darned quick at first to make that clear connection. It's not time yet to go for duration, so I wouldn't be standing there waiting for a ten-second silent moment.

Do you know marker training?

 Quote: rc dennis

You may wanna get the DVD on training with Markers, so you completely understand the concept, then maybe just work him harder on an "off", a stop doing what your doing command, if its completely intolerable, NO is the off switch. If its approved behavior like playing tug then "STOP" or "BREAK" can be the off, (whatever you want is fine as long as its consistent)
theres lots of ways to teach NO, I drop tidbits of food or kibble on the kitchen floor, when they go for it, say a hard "NO" (mean voice), soon as he stops mark it with "GOOD NO" (happy voice) & quickly show him .... you have the treat, this has to be quick, mark the behaviour within 1/2 of 1 second and show the treat in the next 1/2 second, do the same thing ANYtime he goes to do something intolerable, pick up a shoe, grab a wrong toy whatever. once he really understands NO, say it while he is in the crate barking, let him know, thats intolerable behavior with your voice. Go around the corner, when he starts barking hit him with "NO".Otherwise, lol, get real bones, big ones, ones that take him hours to devour, Ive never seen a dog that would bark his brains out when there is a good hambone handy to chaw on. And again back to the exercise, you may think you played enough but if he still has the energy to bark when you bring him in ...... you didnt play in the snow long enough.
GSD's are hella endurance dogs they can go for quite a while.
good luck with this one, sounds tough.
still has to be a solution other than a collar imho. just keep thinking it out.

Hahaha, you must be from Northern California.

I'm going to try this method for teaching my 14mo. dog to shut his yap, both for his attention seeking in the crate and when his switch is "on".

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

 Quote: Jessica Pedicord

Well lately I've just been ignoring him and let him bark his face off. He can go for HOURS...

How long do you wait during a silent moment to mark and reward for quiet? I would not at all be waiting for some minutes of quiet -- I would probably be right there, totally turned away and noticeably ignoring him, until he was quiet long enough even to draw breath and whip around all happy to mark and reward for quiet.

Same with letting him out.

I'd be looking for a way to turn on that lightbulb in his head that says quiet = good stuff. And you might have to be pretty darned quick at first to make that clear connection. It's not time yet to go for duration, so I wouldn't be standing there waiting for a ten-second silent moment.

Do you know marker training?

Hi Connie,

What if the dog is quiet but, still not calm (hopping, prancing, spinning, etc.)? Would opening the crate reinforce that or would it just be a progressive step towards eventual calmness?

Thanks for the advice, Connie. Yes I am extensively familiar with markers and the dog is marker trained. To let him out of the crate, he must down, pause, and then "gooooooood" (about a 5 second hold on that command). Then he's out. Reason being, he gets excited and starts the spinning, etc when he knows he's getting let out so I'm teaching that he needs to be down and silent for the door to open.

On training the 'enough, quiet', he knows that 'enough' means to stop barking. We've made some major headway in the last few days. I have been doing quiet practice with him a lot. The barking has disolved into whining. To me this is a huge improvement. More training in general impulse control will help with this I think.

I've been training dogs all my life. I started with sporting dogs- Springer Spaniels. I am seeing a lot of parallels in what my puppy is doing with his crate as to what they would do in their runs when they thought it was time to work. Impulse control training was a big deal with them due to the field work we did. Patience was key. The focus of my training sessions in the next few weeks will be impulse control.

Jessica,

I thought for sure that you were talking about MY dog!

Thanks to you all for the advice!