Crate Training Help

[ZaneErikson]

My girlfriend and I recently adopted a 3ish year old Plott Hound/Shar-Pei mix. He is on daily medication for anxiety but has calmed down quite a bit in the 2 months we've had him. Our biggest struggle is getting him comfortable with being alone in his crate. The two times we have had to leave him home alone, he has torn up the bed in his crate and peed.

We are working on getting him used to being in the crate alone and are slowly increasing the amount of time he spends in there. My question is: on those occasions that we overreach and leave him in there a little too long and he begins to bark, should we return right away? I've read in several places that we shouldn't return to the crate while he's barking since it will create an association between barking and us coming back into the room. If we try to wait him out and only return to the room when he stops barking, he will bark endlessly and I'm worried that will do more harm than good.

Also, he is completely comfortable in the crate for any length of time while we are in the room and goes in it happily every night.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Adrienne]

Hi there!

Welcome to the forums!

What an interesting mix! He must be a cutie. 

Is he on medication for separation anxiety or just plain, generalized anxiety? I am asking because if he has separation anxiety, this can interfere quite a lot on the normal crate training process we do with dogs and therefore this becomes a compounding factor which puts a great dent in an progress. If he truly has separation anxiety, many dogs with this condition struggle with being crated because they go into panic mode, feeling trapped on top of getting frantic when left alone. This likely sounds like the case since you mention that he seems to do fine when he is crated in your presence. 

To diagnose separation anxiety, we often recommend recording the dog's behavior when left alone (preferably outside the crate) and then showing the recording to a veterinarian or dog trainer. Showing it to a veterinary behaviorist (if you have any near you) is a big plus, because these experts can prescribe medications purposely crafted for this specific conditions and provide an appropriate accompanying  behavior modification plan. 

A proper diagnosis is also important because there can be other causes for the behavior you are seeing that are not separation anxiety related. These may require a different protocol.

In general, if a dog is barking when left alone due to separation anxiety, it's a sign that we have likely pushed too far and need to take a few steps back, working at a level the dog is more comfortable with before working on longer absences. We may also have to incorporate a variety of exercises to desensitize the dog to our pre-departure cues (like tying our shoes, grabbing our keys etc) and teach these dogs to hold initially very brief sit-stays, down/stays when we leave a room if the dog tends to follow us everywhere and mixing in gradually longer stays every now and then, always making sure to not progress too fast. 

You can read more about separation anxiety in these threads: 

Let me know if you have any other questions or would like to go more in depth on the subject. 

Best,

Adrienne