I have a 75lb Giant Schnauzer/Standard Poodle mix (one of those new "designer dogs"). I got Virgil from a shelter in the middle of nowhere Mississippi, and he was in pretty bad shape when I got him.His previous owners had locked him in a cage in the backyard and moved. He was in that cage for almost a week, when the neighbor, who had been giving him food and water, realized they werent coming back, and cut him out (a 6 or 7 month old puppy) with bolt cutters and took him to the shelter.

2 years later I love my dog, but I was never able to kennel train him. The vet said he would probably need puppy prozac to be trained. When placed in a cage he FREAKS. Screams, rolls around, soils himself. I have gotten him to be ok shut in a small room (even small rooms, with me inside them, freaked him at first and sent him into a breakdown). Is it necessary to train him to be crate trained? Will this inhibit my ability to get a new dog? Any ideas for crate training? I just think that when he sees a cage he remembers being locked away and left (dogs do have picture memories), so I don't know if it's just cruel to do that to him. Also, if I have to move to another country I couldn't take him with me very easily if he can't deal with being in a crate.

Is it possible to crate train my dog without drugging him or stressing me and him out too much?

What have you tried?
Anything in two years?

 Quote: randy allen

What have you tried?
Anything in two years?

Also, are you saying he is not potty-trained either?

But yeah .... what have you done so far? Is there a crate in your house somewhere?

He's very well potty trained. He never goes in the house. He has had maybe three accidents the whole time I have had him and those have been because he was sick, and I was out all day. I tried in the beginning for a few months. I tried feeding him in it every day, but he would kind of stick as little of his body inside it as he could, and I tried and i tried putting him in it and leaving for short periods of time (like five minutes) and coming back.. I don't remember exactly, but I tried what I thought was everything, but one minute or thirty didn't matter, I would come back and he would be drooling like crazy (he never drools normally) and if I left him for more than 30 minutes I would either find him covered with drool, urine, and all the other nasty things dogs exude, or magically out of his crate... or both. He doesnt soil the house, and as long as he has no access to smelly or foody things, (and as long as I'm not gone over 8 hours) he doesnt make a mess inside.

O and I tried it consistently for about 2 months and just gave up. I talked to a vet and told her what i was doing and she seemed to think that the only way to have him ok with it would be to drug him.

Closing him in it and leaving for a few minutes is really jumping way far ahead of a gradual desensitizing process with a reaction like this.

Is there a crate in your house?

put his food in his crate, hunger usually wins. I'd also take the door off the crate, this is going to take awhile

 Quote: alice margins

... Is it possible to crate train my dog without drugging him or stressing me and him out too much?

Alice, the answer, IMHO, is "probably yes."

However, as Dennis said and as I mentioned in the jumping-ahead post, it's a slow process requiring patience, and putting him in and shutting the door is so far down the road that it doesn't bear mentioning yet.

If you do not have a crate, my first step would be to get one. Get a used one (I have bought $10 crates before) if you want to be sure before spending money on a new one.

Then the next step is to leave it somewhere. Just leave it somewhere in the house in a room that you all frequent. That's it for now. In a week, I would let the dog see me put a wonderful treat just inside the door (which is propped open and which you won't be closing for a long time).

I would not remark/look/react to the dog's popping in to grab it and run.

More later. I'm just showing you how extremely premature the vet was to say that you needed meds.

No real fault of the vet's, IMHO. Meds and illnesses and injuries are what vets study and why we need them -- this is not something I would address with most vets.