I’ve been having trouble getting Mississippi to go in her crate. She obviously was punished by being put in a crate. It seemed she just won’t go in the thing no matter how good the reward. I’ve tried getting in there myself with treats, I’ve tried putting all her favorite things in there, giving her loaded kongs in there. Nothing has worked so far. She won’t even take things out of the crate. If I leave a treat in there, she won’t put more than a paw and a half down to get it. If it means two paws, she just leaves it.
My friend Andi told me she trained her dog to walk on a leash by spoon feeding her canned dog food. I decided to try the can to get her into the crate. I hyped up the opening of the can, gave her a spoonful in the kitchen, then gave her another spoonful near the crate. I then put my hand through one of the crate doors and lured her in through the other door. She was so out of her mind with canned food happiness, she had no idea where she was. I started feeding her through the bars of the crate, then I even got her to sit inside the crate while I fed her the rest of the can through the door. She went back in herself to look for more scraps. I figure two or three more cans and she’ll start to love her crate.
The downside? Farting. Ewwww, such disgusting farting. The can says the ingredients are just chicken and water, but they must be using some sort of Sulfite based preservative or something. The farting is terrible. She was really fidgety all night too, which is rare for her. Lately we’ve been having one big barking fit at night but the rest of the night she’s usually laying in her bed quietly. She woke Tom up with her gas and he sleeps through everything.
We had a pretty pleasant long walk yesterday but her zig zagging is really starting to get to me. I’m a little frustrated at how slow the training is going so far. She’s great at her commands but when it comes to walking, She still thinks they are her walks instead of ours. I can hold her on a short leash for a while, but it’s exhausting. I’ve been alternating between givig her slack and reining her in. I know that’s bad to let her have control of the walk but I don’t know what else to do right now. I tried to get ahold of one of the behaviorists at the OHS last week but he has laryngitis. I’m going to try again. I guess you can have a free one hour session. I’m hoping they can help us with these more serious issues. Learning commands alone isn’t helping. The barking is getting worse and the toothy behavior is getting worse.
Today we’re going to work on getting her to sit and wait for us to walk out of the house before she’s allowed to come. She’ll sit for us when we open the door but when it comes to walking out, she tries to rush out. We’ve been physically holding her back so that we go out first.
Mississippi barks at nothing. She barks when she wants more play time. She barks when she wants me to stop working or watching tv. We can’t watch tv at all without her either barking up a storm or trying to eat the couch, the coffee table, the rug. I got her to lie down in her bed next to the couch and gave her a nice massage thinking if she wants more attention, we can control how she gets it. Things went well for a few minutes, then she nipped at me and started eating the couch. As Tom says, she’s an angry teenager who doesn’t speak English. “Hold me, don’t touch me!” Our trainer wants us to treat her every time she starts barking but I know she is not barking because of outside noises. She is barking because she has no patience and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Kongs and treats alone are not going to solve these issues.
We went to the vet yesterday. She was of course waaaay too excited but we did ok. She was quite a charmer despite her crazy hyperactivity. She only barked when I left her in an exam room to turn in her paperwork. We didn’t even attempt to have her sit in the waiting room. Though there’s a dog who hangs out there and she didn’t bark at him. He wasn’t very tolerant of her enthusiasm and he snipped at her. She shed so much at the vet I may put her in the carpet business. I was so afraid she as been gaining weight from all the treating and kongs but it turns out, if anything, she’s lost weight. So looks like more snacks for Mississippi! The vet says she has some tartar and she gave me some rawhide. I told her I was pretty sure Mississippi would eat it in no time but she swore the rawhide was too tough to get through. I gave it to Missi this morning and she tore off a corner in no time. I tried to take it from her and she became very possessive, more than I’ve ever seen before. No more rawhide for Mississippi. We’re going to try carrots next. I can’t imagine sticking a toothbrush in her mouth the way things are going lately.