Rescued puppy refuses to come out of crate

[hello]

Hello everyone, my partner and I brought little Eri who’s 4 months old home today. At the shelter she was extremely skittish and scared of the dogs around barking, so she pooped and peed.

 

Brought her home and while setting up her crate, she initially rushed under the sofa. Managed to get her all settled in, but now she refuses to come out of her crate. We’re also a little worried that she hasn’t peed or pooped since the accident at the shelter.

 

We’re at a lost as to how we can make her feel comfortable enough to do her business, and also what should our priority be regarding training. Thank you!

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hello,

Welcome to the forum,

It sounds like poor little Eri is terrified. It takes some time for some pups to gain enough courage to start exploring their surroundings and regain normal functions (eat, drink, eliminate). Her body right now is in fight or flight mode and all those stress hormones are causing her to instinctively give priority to being safe. This means that some physiological functions are temporarily shut down.

 

It is not unheard of for some fearful dogs to not pee for up to even 36 hours. You are right to be concerned about her not peeing, poop can wait, but pee is important. There are chances though her bladder isn't much full if she hasn't drank much. There are also chances that she has peed in her crate but you can't see it because she's lying on it. Shelter dogs learn to pee in their kennels so they just go when they have to. In any case, yes, you will need to do everything possible to help her relax and learn that she is safe. Here are a few suggestions:

 

-Keep noises at a minimum.

-Talk in low voices

-Try your best not to cough/sneeze in her presence

-Walk and move slowly

-Wear shoes that make little noise when walking

-Keep the crate with the door open (you may have to attach the door to the crate so she doesn't get scared in case the door happens to move)

-Keep some high-value treats out of the crate to entice her to come out

-Avoid direct eye contact, leaning down towards her, talking in excited voices

-Once she's more comfy, keep a blanket or mat in the crate, the noise produced when walking on the bottom of wire crates may scare sensitive dogs and make them reluctant to walk out

-Once she's more comfy, teach her to learn to not to fear to be praised, say things in a reassuring tone of voice such as "what a good good girl! awww, look at you!" and drop a treat from your hand. You can then use praise to encourage her and provide positive feedback for exploratory behaviors.

-You may have to kneel down at her level when you interact with her at first.

-You can try a pheromone plug-in diffuser for fearful/stressed dogs such as Adaptil

 

If you are planning for her to go potty outside, in an ideal situation she should follow you out, but she may be too fearful to go out there for now. You can try placing pee pads/newspapers around just in case as she might be used to going potty when she feels like it and where she is after being in the shelter. If she soils in the crate/house make sure to clean the mess up with an enzyme-based cleaner like Nature's Miracle. You will likely need to start potty training from scratch once she is more comfortable in her surroundings.

 

Training can wait for now as it's priority that she learns to feel safe in her new home. When dogs are in such a fearful state, their cognitive functions shut down anyway and this impairs learning. She needs some time to de-stress and get rid of those stress hormones. All teaching for now should focus on creating positive associations with her environment. Learn what triggers her fear and work on making those situations less fearful. If you find several triggers, you can me make a list and I can suggest how to desensitize and countercondition her to those once she's comfortable in taking food. Once she is more comfortable, you can then start to do some of the basic, elementary brain games and start the obedience 101 section.

 

Here is a read about fearful dogs:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/helping-fearful-rescue-dog/

Edited November 10, 2018 by Adrienne Farricelli

[JMFS]

Good morning! After being cooped up with all those barking, baying, whining dogs I'm sure she'll adjust to the peace and quiet of your home in time. :)

 

Is she a mixed breed? Small, medium, large? Did y'all carry her or was she okay on a leash? I"m curious about this little girl!

 

Both my medium sized pooches are rescues. Momo came from Austin PetsAlive! and Gertie was at the Humane Society. I brought Momo home when he was 4 months as well. It's funny how different they all are - he was ready to play with the cats, the cats were thoroughly unimpressed. Monkey remains so. Gertie, on the other hand, was much like Eri, but Gertie was around 9 months old. She was timid and hesitant about most things and had zero manners. I mean None. An open door meant "go ahead," she chewed up the cord for my sewing machine foot (I was Livid, husband fixed it), she decimated the cord to my drill (husband is a building contractor so now I use his manly one), she grew a peanut butter beard when Someone (me) didn't put away the peanut butter, she got her nose stuck in a bag of Fritos that was on my desk . . .. Enjoy the timid period, lol. Eri will come around and Then you're in for some antics.

 

The laundry room is still considered a place of great evil to Gertie. My guess is she spent a lot of time in a small room like that. With oodles of patience (I'm Aries - we run short on that commodity), soft petting, and treats (slaves to their stomachs!) she's overcome all but that darn laundry room. She scuttles through that thing like it's going to bite her rump, her tail tucked a little, her butt sloped down, lol. Eventually we'll work on that but for now she doesn't have any need to spend time in there so it's low on the list. I'm straying . . .. Eri will probably need time and patience. Or, she might figure out real quick that this is for reals and she's not going to have to go back to the chaos of the shelter. Gertie is now out of her shell and holy Toledo is she ever a goofball! Her first week was one of gently enticing her into every experience, even eating. As I type this she's squeaking her duck and prancing around the office as though she's some great huntress showing off her latest kill (I've come to know this behavior as an "extinction burst," thanks to Adrienne :D).

 

Not much advice from me, just anecdotes which I hope help ease your mind. :) If it were me I'd sit next to (not in front of) her crate and hum, chat with my husband, play a game on my phone, something I'd act naturally about, and nonchalantly put treats in front of her here and there so she associates me with good stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if she's too nervous to take treats, though. Once you walk away she might gobble them up. For exercises like that I love the Zuke's minis. They're flavor bombs (or at least smell like they would be) and they're tiny so you don't have to worry about fattening up your pooch.

 

And yep, that was an extinction burst, Gertie is now snoring softly on her bed.

[hello]

Hey Adrienne & Jennifer,

 

Thank you so much for the advice and assurance. Before we got her I was reading up so much about crate training, getting her settled in without too much whining on her first night so this was a total curveball. Eri loves going back into her crate and generally confined spaces where she can curl up and not see the world.

 

We’ve began to realise a few triggers like sudden hand movements (we’ve read your article 😊), not to move while she’s eating and unfamiliar sounds. We’ve been trying out best to minimise on the first 2!

 

So far we’ve brought her down last night at 11pm just cos there wasn’t gonna be anyone around. She was extremely skittish at first but slowly relaxed and cuddled up next to us. At a certain point she was just sitting and relaxing a bit away from us. This morning didn’t go as well because the water fountains around our apartment scared her so she wasn’t as calm. Both days we didn’t manage to walk her as she was struggling against it, so we just sat down with her on the floor and took everything in.

 

Both times a security guard (different person) walked past and she got extremely freaked out even though they were a distance away. Makes me think there’s some history there.

 

At home we just let her be. She seems very comfortable in her crate and just notices us going about. She’s not exactly very treats motivated but we’ve managed to get her to step out a couple of times fully during meal time. But she retreats almost immediately and takes lots of coaxing to continue.

 

We play piano pieces for her (lol) through the night and when we leave the house. She’s calm in the crate.

 

That’s all I have to update on our first day together. I know it’ll take time and patience and we’re ok with that. Just don’t want to unknowingly reward behaviour that’s counterproductive in trying to get Eri out of her shell :)

 

Thanks again guys 🙏🏼

[JMFS]

Awww, music is a good soother for the pups. I play George Winston for our girls when I have to run errands. Abbi is a fan of Blackmore's Night, and other Celtic singers, too. Thank goodness for Spotify! YouTube has quite a few playlists just for dogs that will play for 2 or more hours, just in case you need a back up. When I remember to, I'll put 3 - 4 drops of lavender essential oil on a cotton round and slide that under the crate so it's diffused and so the girls won't try to eat it. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not so much. Gertie was prescribed Prozac and Xanex but I quickly weaned her off that and decided she's just going to be one of those dogs who's crated when we leave (the destruction she dealt when left free range was impressive, but highly unappreciated).

 

I thought Gertie was going to be a challenge because she was woefully uninterested in treats. As long as I have my homemade treats or Zuke's minis, she's a malleable piece of clay in my hands now, though! Like Eri, she needed to find her feet first. Gert's brother was with her so she was also going through that separation issue. He was adopted the day we went in to look for a Rottweiler / Lab mix litter we'd heard was available. By the time we got there they were gone and one of the gals asked if we'd seen "Taylor" yet. She brought Gertie to the "getting to know you" pen and Gertie kept walking away from us to chill by herself in the shaded part of the enclosure (it was ridiculously hot for only being April). I thought she was Totally uninterested in us - she even spat out the Milkbones we were given to help with the meet and greet. Now she follows me from room to room and curls up on the couch next to me when I crochet. And I dare not eat popcorn without sharing . . .. She's perfect! Well, aside from that squirrel chasing and the occasional ninja pee (honestly, she's my shadow - I have no idea how I miss her sneak off every now and then!), but we're working on it. :D To think I almost passed her up for 13-week olds Rosa, who liked to swing from my pony tail by her teeth, and her friend, Consuela, who was smart as a whip and liked to fetch. They were so much fun, über smart, and highly interactive. It was a heart wrenching decision, but my husband was happy to remind me tonight that I made the right choice and that He was the driving force behind that. :D I tried real real hard to get all three, but reason (husband) won out, lol. I still think they would have been a bundle of fun, but then I think of all that chaos . . ..

 

Anyway, keep us posted. I'm just another person looking for guidance, but I stop by when I need a break from work (which is often). It sounds like Eri's in good hands with people who are going to go at her pace. It took about a month before we started getting into a routine and we (Gertie and I - the husband thinks dogs are family and don't need training, oiy!) just started training in earnest, beyond the basic sit and stay, three weeks ago. Dogs like Eri and Gertie make great companions once they realize they're home, like Really home.

[Howler]

Thanks so much for the update. Good to hear she is slowly starting to warm up. Sounds like she doesn't need much training to learn to like the crate as she already finds it a comfy place to retreat to! Music can really help, we use "Through a Dog's Ear" CD's for stressed dogs, but nowadays there are more and more CDs coming out for relaxing dogs.

 

Once she seems calmer and takes food and treats more readily, if you notice what type of hand movements frighten her, you can present these hand movements in a less intense way (slower, at a distance) and let your hands drop treats after making the movement. Then, you can gradually make the hand movement more salient, always dropping treats. If any point she startles, make a mental note and make the movement less intense. Don't progress from there until she seems comfortable with the movement. You can then progress to using hand movements to toss treats around. Make it a fun game. After several reps of these exercises, she should come to associate hand movements with treats and look forward to them.

 

For sounds, the "hear that' method has turned helpful for several of my fearful fosters and even my dogs when moving to new places:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/fear-noises/

 

 

Slow and steady wins the race with fearful dogs. Let her explore at her own pace. Contrary to what was thought time ago ago, you can't reinforce fear in dogs, because fear is an emotion. So it's OK to talk to her, provide praise for baby steps and encourage her. Let her understand that you are trustworthy and will protect her from any harm. Once all those stress hormones are out of the way and the 'honeymoon period" is over, she should be coming out of her shell more and more and you may notice more and more normal "doggy behaviors"that you may need to work on.

 

It sounds like she is very shy on walks and fears novelties. With neophobic dogs, they often weren't socialized much before and they come to fear anything they are not used to seeing. At 16 weeks, the prime socialization window has closed so you will need to work on remedial socialization which means habituating her gradually to people, their movements and new sights and sounds and forming positive associations with them. She is very lucky to have such dedicated dog owners. Once she settles and gains trust, she'll be super happy to have found you.

Best,

Adrienne

Edited November 11, 2018 by Howler