Yapping Through All Hours

[Abbiex]

I got a cavalier (Charley) and bichon frise (Buddy) in Dec and are both 10 months old now. They immediatly settled in and bonded great. But every night Charley barks in the early hours of the morning. When we got them we decided to let them sleep in a large cage downstairs because they weren't trained. But Charley has never liked it since day one. When we trained them we let them sleep in our room but they weed and pooed everywere, so they had to go in the cage again. We let them out to the toilet right before bed and give them some toys, a bed, food and water with them at night. We have tried spraying Charley with water everytime he yaps and just ignoring him but it hasn't had any affect. Any tips would be grately appreciated.

Abbie x

[Furrfoot]

Do you cover the crate at night? When we have to crate Rose (usually in the daytime, though), we throw treats in, and then cover her. All that worked for us in getting her crate trained (she slept in one for the first few weeks after we brought her home) was ignoring her- and by that, I mean, putting her in the crate at around 12am after "last call" pottying and then not going back in (at least not where she could see us- we hid under a blanket, and peeked through a crack in the crate, from a distance, on our hands and knees, because we worried when she finally quit, lol) until around 6am-7am. Rose has a veryyyy stubborn streak, and this is what her breeder advised. It was very hard, but the pay off for all of us (including Rose) was worth it in the end. She now beats us to her crate and naps happily while we're gone. She is our first crate trained dog, though, so I'm sure other people with more experience have more advice than just what we needed to do .

I don't know that I would spray him with water while he's in the crate though- you want him to be happy with his crate, and if he's trapped in it when you spray him, that doesn't make for good associations, it may just make him want out of there more .

[Abbiex]

Thanks so much for the advice we do cover it with old curtains it worked at first but now Charley still yaps. We try putting a meat bone with them which sometimes keeps them quiet. Were no going to try not putting food in with them just the bone because he always goes to the toliet when he gets out

[MomObvious]

I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm being a brat but do you free feed your dogs? Cause a dog that is free fed will free potty. Fresh water should always be available but I have never free fed my dogs. It sounds like the barking may be asking to go out a potty, which is a good thing. I think that as soon as you get free feeding out of your house the crate training will go better. You need to hit up the training your puppy info. Focus on the crate training after you get the free feeding gone, I think it will help a lot. Also if you want your dog to love his crate (which is the goal) punishing him by spraying him with water for barking in it will not help.

Oh yeah and try a bully stick or an antler for a crate treat, they are totally safer too.

[Abbiex]

Thank youbfor the advice I will try the bully stick. We dont free feed our dogs but if there was still food in tje bowl of a night time we would put it in with them. Charley also goes in the crate on his own acord at least once a day.

[Karlin]

A couple of things. First off, I would make mealtimes much more regimented than that -- dogs should finish their meal within 10 minutes and then the food should be taken up til the next planned feeding time. Their last feeding time should not be later than around 5 or 6pm to enable them to have one last poop before bedtime (make sure this happens and walk the dogs til it does). There are many many reasons to have set feeding regimens but this is especially critical with two dogs. While they may be fine having extra food around right now, this is one of the major causes of problems and two males or two females are a LOT more likely to start serious fighting over something like this. No treats into the evening after their evening meal either except maybe a small piece of dog biscuit at bedtime to reinforce bedtime (I do this with all my dogs and they rush to their crates at night).

In general food should go down in separate bowls -- carefully measured as both these breeds are prone to obesity. The bowls should be in separate crates, or across the room and the dogs constantly supervised for their 10 minute feeding period, or one in a crate and one out. After 10 min take the bowls away making no fuss and put away any leftover food. No treats or food til the next feeding period if they have not finished their meal. Repeat this at their evening meal and under no circumstances leave food down for them to graze. Eating anything in their crates is far more likely to cause them to have to go during the night --you are stimulating their digestive tract. Leave them a safe chewtoy like a kong or nylabone instead but again it isn't ever safe to leave two dogs in a single crate with toys and especially never bones or bully sticks (very high value treats that are frequently fought over) they can and probably eventually will fight over (bones of course should never be cooked bones). A fight in a crate has high risk of serious injury or even death. Sorry Melissa but am going to contradict your advice here as treats like bully sticks and bones and rawhides and antlers ALL need to be supervised -- general advice is to never give these to a dog overnight or unsupervised in a crate where you cannot help if the dog chokes on a piece or the piece gets very small (the point at which it can be swallowed is when it should be thrown away). These are all treats for supervised treat times. The safest treats for unsupervised chewing are hard nylabones or kongs of the right strength and size for the type of chewer. But never, EVER where there are two dogs in a crate -- they need to be separate for this and so might be time to invest in two smaller crates.

Are they both housetrained now? They really should be about 95% trained and dogs this age shouldn't generally be fouling.

Dogs at this age need 2 meals at most and if they are leaving food regularly it is likely they are getting more than they need. I would consider cutting back the amount they get. Cavaliers in particular can start to get fat and this is the single highest health risk for them as ther are almost all eventually going to get heart disease and obesity will bring this on sooner and cause them to die earlier so watching weight is really critical.

Knowing whether each dog fed properly and if they left food, and that one didn't take the other's food, is a very important part of dog ownership especially having two dogs. I had an emaciated cavalier come into rescue whose family hadn't even noticed how thin he was. Turns out he was fed in the garden with their husky -- both put out to feed -- and clearly the larger dog was routinely eating all the food for the other dog. So it's really important to monitor this.

On the barking -- you really mostly need to just endure it til it stops and never respond to the barking in any way whatsoever. I know this is tough but that is really the best way to extinguish unwanted behaviours -- you can reinforce the behaviour simply by shouting 'no' (anyone with a child will knowhow even punishment can reinforce a child to continue with a behaviour as it is still a repayment for their behaviour of your attention! Same with dogs). Try crating them separately each in a covered crate (this is a good idea anyway if you have two unneutered males -- and also raises the issue of whether they are neutered; you probably do not want to have two unneutered males in the household anyway). They have been fine til now but are going into the stage where they are likely to begin to face off against each other. If you haven;t discussed tis with your vet, it would be good to do so. Id also try leaving a radio on low music such as a classical station which is known to be calming or there are CDs you can get of music that has a beat that soothes dogs (I know trainers who recommend these for anxious dogs). You could also try their crate(s) in your room. Many dogs simply want the closeness of their owners but almost any dog can be trained to happily sleep wherever the owners wish.

I can't really tell from this post whether there are still housetraining issues as well? If so then at this age they would need remedial training -- eg starting again as if they are not trained at all. Never ever punish dogs for mistakes in housetraining of course as this only causes further problems -- often only telling the dog that the issue is going when you are there so they go secretively.

I'd never spray a dog in the face with water -- again this kind of punishment approach often only reinforces the unwanted behaviour and in addition cam be really frightening for these two gentle natured breeds. Cavaliers also have large and easily damaged eyes and it is risky to spray them with anything. These may seem like good methods and sadly still too many websites and punishment0based trainers still advocate such methods but they have really been discredited in recent years and there's lots of evidence that they create more problems, including potentially fear aggression over time.

I'd strongly recommend downloading the free book After You Get Your Puppy which will take you through some excellent approaches to housetraining, feeding, night sleeping and every possible behaviour and training and management issue -- great not just for puppies but dogs of any age!

You can get it here:

www.dogstardaily.com/free-downloads

Let us know what ends up working for you! Almost all of us with dogs have been through this at one point or another. There is no single solution but there should be one that works -- depending on what your goal is for where the dogs are to sleep.

[Karlin]

Here's a great article from a trainer on why spraying a dog with water is the wrong approach -- for all sorts of reasons, even when it seems to work!

http://dogtrainer.quickanddirtytips....-your-dog.aspx