time to leave the crate behind

[altabello]

Our 4 months old BC pup is getting too big for her crate in the car. I'm afraid a larger crate won't fit the backseat of the truck anymore. So we would like to slowly start to de-crate train her. The crate upstairs that she sleeps in is much larger, so she can keep that one for a while longer. However, we would like her to be able to sleep just on a dog bed, cause we couldn't take that Xlarge crate when traveling and staying somewhere else. And talk about staying somewhere else: Any advice on keeping a dog from barking? Like in a hotel? Any tips? TIA!

 

 

[GentleLake]

Welcome to the Boards. Cute pup.

 

Have you considered a soft crate for traveling? I love the Dog Digs crates that fold down into a duffle-type carrier about the same size as a folding chair. (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FOTUJI/ref=asc_df_B000FOTUJI3749712?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=pricegrabbe05-20&linkCode=df0&creative=395097&creativeASIN=B000FOTUJI&ascsubtag=1437510273_2f09652f877a934290108d88ec48c6dd_1941_402_1507426777_6919)

 

I have a couple of the large size, which are actually larger than either of my dogs need. Not appropriate for confinement in a vehicle, but great for use when you get where you're going. Leave her for short periods of time while you're close enough (the other side of the door perhaps) to hear her and respond if she barks. Gradually increase duration and proof in other locations.

 

As far as your duplicate posts, I believe you have to ask the moderators. Look at the bottom of this page for contact info: http://www.bordercollie.org/boards/index.php?app=core&module=help

[Sue R]

Welcome!

 

You don't need to give up using a crate entirely, and perhaps you shouldn't. A dog that is comfortable being crated, even occasionally, is a dog that is better prepared should an emergency arise - a recovery that requires crate rest; an evacuation and/or stay at emergency facilities; confinement at the vet office; and whatever situation might require a dog to be comfortable and content in close confinement.

 

My dogs (50#, 42#, and 35#) all use wire 36" crates at home for eating and bone-chewing and when needed otherwise but I know many people with dogs of comparable size and shape that use as small a 30" plastic (airline-style) crates for travel. With a pad, the dogs will curl up and sleep contentedly during a trip. My at-home crates are plenty large enough for them to sprawl out but that is not generally a need for travel, particularly not for younger dogs. For older, arthritic, stiffer dogs, more room is a nice thing for their comfort.

 

I don't know precisely how large your pup is or how large her crate is but if it's an extra-large, I would think it likely to fit her into adulthood, at least for short trips. Crating (or seat-belting, if crating is not an option) in the vehicle is a safety factor and much better than having a loose dog, for the dog's sake at least in case of accident.

 

Many hotels do not allow dogs to be left in the room even if crated to avoid issues with barking. Giving your dog something to do (like a stuffed Kong in her crate) might help keep her quiet at least for a while. I would not leave a dog unconfined and unsupervised in a motel room as there is potential for noise and damage when left in a strange place, even with the most polite dog.

[chrisandgabe]

Welcome!

 

I want to endorse not giving the crate up. Having a dog that's comfortable in a crate makes a lot of things easier. When we visit family, the dog is crated if we need to go out (so traveling, without the concern of making noise in a hotel room). I was involved in a training video shoot with my last dog, when it wasn't his turn to be on camera or he just needed to relax a little, he went in a crate and did just that. Our current dog has been good in a crate since we adopted him, and it's been such a gift. We have a really big wire crate in our bedroom that's his main crate, and a soft travel crate we keep in the car. My in-laws had a medium-large wire crate at their house our 44 lb Gabe fit in fine, so your puppy may not need a super big crate. But an easy-to-fold, lightweight crate is great to have! Enjoy your pup!

[ourwully]

Juno is almost two and still sleeps in her crate. At night, all I have to do is go to the treat cupboard and she bolts to her crate. I give her a small treat and she is happy all night. We also have a folding crate for her but we haven't used it much. I saw a lot of the instructors at dog school with these crates. The crate is such a useful thing I don't think I will ever get rid of it. In fact, I made Juno's crate from some old Ikea furniture so it blends in with the room.

 

When we go in the car I have a seat belt/harness for Juno. She can move around a bit but not enough to interfere with driving. My wife is a police officer and she insisted on the seat belt for a couple of reasons. For one if you are in an accident the dog becomes a projectile which can harm you or the dog or both. The second reason is one that many people don't think about. My wife went to an accident where the driver was injured and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance. While all this was happening, the dog in the rear seat was so frightened he ran away. It wasn't until later the man asked about his dog. Fortunately, they found the dog but it was a week later.

[nancy]

We use a harness when we take Dixie in the car. I wouldn't let a pet ride loose any more than I'd let a child. I don't want her getting slammed around in an accident. And I don't want to have to post the sad newspaper request for a dog that ran off after an accident.

Fergie gave up using a crate in the house, although I could crate her if it were necessary. Dixie likes her big airline crate: it's her private room. Unless the cat claims it for a while. Dix did once step right in while Maggie was in - and really startled Mag.

 

For travel, we have a big wire crate that folds down and fits nicely flat in the trunk. Last time we used it was for a week at the beach. As soon as I got it into Dixie's bedroom (yeah, she had her own room), Dix stood right next to me to watch me set it up. And as soon as I unfolded it, she got in. DH had to snuggle he a ways away so I could finish.

 

As Virginia Woolf said, everyone needs a room of one's own.

[altabello]

Thanks for all the responses. We don't want to 'loose the crate' entirely, Shoni will always have a crate for certain things, like going snowmobiling with us (crate fits nicely in snow machine sled), or should she have to be immobilized for medical reasons, etc. However, the crate is too small for her on long car rides, and we travel a lot. A larger crate, even a travel crate (which she doesn't like, it gets too hot in there), won't fit the backseat of our truck, nor could we take other passengers while her current crate is in there.

We took her backpacking last weekend, and she rode in the truck crate-less afterwards, a seven hour trip, she would have been so cramped in the crate! While backpacking, she sleeps in our tent vestibule without wandering off. Again, a crate can't be backpacked into the backcountry. It's also quite cumbersome to take her to work and haul the crate back and forth between our home, the car and the office, that's why we would like to train her to do well without the crate. Isn't there anyone on here who's dog isn't crated

 

As for the barking: she's not left alone in the hotel room, we're with her, and she barks (probably cause it's a new place). The barking isn't relentlessly, but loud enough to possibly get complaints (so far, so good). No to little interest in Kongs or other food stuffed toys unfortunately, unless we play with her and the toy (she's very much people focused).

[GentleLake]

It's also quite cumbersome to take her to work and haul the crate back and forth between our home, the car and the office, that's why we would like to train her to do well without the crate.

 

Many people who'd need a crate both at home and at work would have 2, one for each locations. Or a much lighter weight soft crate that's easier to transport.

 

And of course, backpacking isn't conducive to crating. And if she's got a secure place in the truck where she's safe in an accident (as Ourwully points out in response to one of the other duplicate posts), that's fine too.

 

Of course many of us have dogs who aren't crated, especially once they're outgrown the unreliable puppy stage. Not a whole lot of 4 month old pups have reached that stage yet when left for periods of time, but there are certainly exceptions. If your pup is one of them, that's great.

 

As for the barking in the hotel, that's just something you're going to have to keep working on. She's still a baby; it'll take some time before she understands that she doesn't need to react to strange noises in unfamiliar places.

[rushdoggie]

Re: hotels. Dogs being comfortable traveling takes time. We try to take a one night overnight trip to the beach or someplace nice to visit in the off season with the new dogs, so the hotels are partly empty and thus a. quiet, b. we are less likely to share a wall with someone should barking happen.

 

We travel with soft crates and plan on spending a long evening relaxing in our room watching movies after taking them on hikes/etc during the day and so everyone gets to know how hotels work. If you can plan that its a nice way to introduce dogs to travel.

 

I once had a young dog attend a very busy agility trial with me and it was his 1st overnight, didn't think much about it. Well, we ended up staying at a hotel packed with dogs and it was unpleasant, lots of things to bark at, wound up, etc. Much nicer to introduce it as a quiet thing.

 

And yes, she should be retrained in the car so she doesn't become a projectile in an accident and hurt herself or the passengers, or even in a low impact get loose (car doors pop open on impact, dog gets scared and bolts). If a crate doesn't fit, get her a doggie seat belt.

 

Re: having room, my dogs sleep in the car so being carted is no big whoop. In fact, my dogs sleep like 19 hours a day, so its not even like their schedules are disrupted.

[juliepoudrier]

I have crates that stay in my vehicle permanenty, but then it is a dog-mobile and I have no desire to haul stuff in and out of there. The downside is that there's room for only one other person--in the passenger seat of the van. When I had a small car and a pickup the dogs used to ride loose in the seats and floorboards, but I have to say that the possibility of an accident and dogs lost or as projectiles scares me to death.

 

I also have crates in my house. Generally only youngsters (= not necessarily reliable when left alone) are crated when I'm at work during the day. At night, only the puppy is crated. But I have enough crates in the house that I could confine everyone if I needed to (say we've had a bunch of rainy days and I don't want to deal with the mud from multiple dogs).

 

When I travel to sheepdog trials, my dogs are not crated in the hotel. I do the hotel the courtesy of covering the beds (and floors if it's bad weather) with my own sheets or blankets so that we're not leaving behind a cleaning nightmare. In hotels, only puppies (or the very old and unreliable) are crated.

 

So yes, there are those of us who don't crate our dogs. I prefer mine in crates for safey reasons when traveling in a vehicle, and I crate puppies whenever I can't watch them closely (or in hotels). I've never had a problem with my dogs barking in the hotel (except the occasional alarm bark) and I appreciate that you are concerned about your pup's barking in a hotel because nothing aggravates me more than someone's dog barking while I'm trying to sleep.

 

Anyway, there are folks on this forum who train their dogs to stay on mats. You could do something similar and then you take the mat with you when you travel or camp and the pup stays on it when asked. At 4 months, though, I wouldn't trust her in a hotel--likely too many smells that could inspire mistakes of the housebreaking kind.

 

My dogs all know that "quiet" means they need to shut up. Some folks have success with putting barking on command and then helping their dogs understand that they don't bark unless asked to. You could probably combine that with a "quiet" command.

 

J.

[nancy]

I could put up with a barking dog rather than what I usually get: someone in the next room who has the TV at top volume all night, on some stupid channel. Maybe I need to take a barking dog on my next trip? Competition can be fun.

[Gloria Atwater]

Our 4 months old BC pup is getting too big for her crate in the car. I'm afraid a larger crate won't fit the backseat of the truck anymore. So we would like to slowly start to de-crate train her. The crate upstairs that she sleeps in is much larger, so she can keep that one for a while longer. However, we would like her to be able to sleep just on a dog bed, cause we couldn't take that Xlarge crate when traveling and staying somewhere else. And talk about staying somewhere else: Any advice on keeping a dog from barking? Like in a hotel? Any tips? TIA!

 

 

I would not recommend de-crate training her. It's something dogs should always know, as like others have said, in the event of a medical or other emergency. Plus my dogs just plain like their crates! The two grown border collies both sleep in their crates with the doors left open, because it's a safe, den-like spot for them. They have regular dog beds, too, but they always start off in their crates each night.

 

Anyhow, at 4 months, I don't know that your girl would be be anywhere near trustworthy out of the crate. My 9 month old is still in a crate because she eats the cat food and wants to romp around the house with squeaky toys at 5 a.m. So, I'd say just leave your girl a crate at home permanently, and when she's older, and safely trustworthy, you can simply open the door and let her choose whether to sleep in the crate or out on a dog bed. My dogs tend to do both.

 

As for hotel travel, a soft collapsible crate or folding wire crate is wonderful to keep them out of trouble, especially when they are first learning the ropes about travel. When you're loading or unloading your car at the hotel, a crate makes sure they can't escape out into the parking lot or street.

 

Here is the big crate I got for hotel use. Very light and easy to put up, but plenty roomy for my 48 pound male: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ZUCPUE

 

And here is the next size smaller: http://www.amazon.com/EliteField-Sage-Green-3-Door-Crate/dp/B004ZUCWSY/

 

But as for barking in a hotel, remember that most hotels will NOT allow you to leave an unattended dog in the room. It's just not safe, from any angle. So, since you'll be in the room with her, you'll probably just need to work on some distraction activities and tell her a stern "leave it" and call/bring her to you for another, nicer activity such as a toy or treat. I think any dog might "WUFF!" at a sudden noise outside the door, and I don't mind that. I just don't permit a frenzy of barking while in the room.

 

Best of luck!

 

~ Gloria

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

I bring a crate into the motel for young dogs or dogs that haven't done much traveling before. After, I darken the rooim if I leave them alone in the room to go out to dinner. Motels and hotels clean between 10 and 3 and in very many motel stops I've never had a housekeeper come in after 3. I put up the don't disturb sign. In very hot weather, there isn't a practical way to go out to dinner w/o leaving the dogs in the motel: crated or uncrated, your choice.

 

Donald McCaig

[Gideon's girl]

To start teaching a dog to go uncrated, I give them a mat that is named "Bed" and teach them to go to "Bed." The command "Go to bed" means go to that place and lie down and stay there. It takes a while to teach it completely and must be done in steps. I wouldn't trust a dog to keep to it's bed when I'm not present.

[juliepoudrier]

I have a "go to bed" command too, but in my case it means for the dogs to just go away from me and lie down somewhere--my bed, the dog beds that are scattered around, the floor, whatever. It's really just a command that says go settle down and leave me alone.

 

J.

[GentleLake]

^^ In my case, that cue is "settle." Same idea, though . . . and invaluable.

[Gideon's girl]

My "settle" has come to mean lie down by me, so doesn't work quite the same, but I actually use it 10x more, maybe 100x.

[Alchemist]

It's also quite cumbersome to take her to work and haul the crate back and forth between our home, the car and the office, that's why we would like to train her to do well without the crate. Isn't there anyone on here who's dog isn't crated

 

Well... I have three dogs. I have three crates for the "dog room", one crate for my office (for the dog who likes it as a "den"), one for our bedroom, one for the family room, and FOUR for the car (one intermediate crate gets swapped out for a slightly smaller one when we're traveling with two "human" passengers). That's a total of ten crates, not counting the soft-sided one that's never used or the puppy-sized crates. That's how I handle the "cumbersome" part.

 

I agree with the "don't lose the crate" camp, as well as the group suggesting you retain one (even if it seems cramped) for car travel. Dogs are probably safer in a smaller crate in a car anyway.

[alligande]

My dog slept in his crate till a year old, I replaced his crate with the same bed he had slept on inside the crate, in the same place, took a couple of days for him to be really comfortable, he stayed in a crate if we were out during the day till he was 18 months. He was much more likely to get in trouble during the day.

He is still happy to go in a crate, we compete in agility so use them all the time, but I have always lived in small houses, and hate the way crates look in a house so my goal was always for it to go. Like others I have a command that sends them to their bed, I also have settle, which just means lay down and chill, your choice of location, but I also use it when we are out and I want him to chill under a restaurant table for example.