Jump to content

Whining In Crate At Night


Guest Lannie79

Recommended Posts

Guest Lannie79

Hello Everyone,

DH and I have had greyhounds for about 7 years now. This fall we lost one to bone cancer and we are now in the process of adding a new grey to our home. Our adoption group allows for a "3-day trial visit". If all goes well and the dog is a good match with our current grey, he'll stay. If it doesn't work out, he will return to his foster family.

 

Last night, we brought home a young male (2.5 y/o) for his trial visit. So far everything is going well and he is getting along great with our current grey. However when we put him in the crate last night, we whined all night. He was not destructive and did not appear nervous/anxious....just whining to get out. His foster mom said that she did not crate him at night but would keep him in a confined space. She said that he would be crated during the day for up to 6 hours. He has not shown any signs of SA.

 

We had let him out several times to go outside and then put him back in the crate. The whining would continue whenever he went back into the crate. DH got fed up and let him out of the crate around 4am. He promptly curled up in the corner and went to sleep.

 

I realize that it was the first night in a strange place for the little guy, but I've never had this issue with my other greys. It has also been a long time since we've had to work with a new/young dog. If he stays beyond his 3-day trial, we would be most comfortable crating him during the day when we leave for work. (At least until we know that we can fully trust both of the dogs together).

 

Any advice on how to best handle this would be appreciated.

 

Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest lizmego

My guess, is that he isn't used to being crated when his humans are home and would rather not be crated at night. Seemed the problem was solved when you let him sleep outside the crate?

 

Were you crating because you weren't sure how he would be with your current grey? If you're not seeing any posturing or space issues, I would see how it continues without crating him at night.

 

I assume that you're crating him when you leave for the day? and I would still do that since the dogs would be unsupervised. You might want to crate him where the other grey sleeps during the day, so the new boy doesn't feel isolated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Willerton

That is exactly what my greyhound did the first night he was home when I tried to crate him. He whined the whole time he was in the crate, but went to sleep immediately when I let him out and slept all night. I was able to crate him just fine during the day for six months. He just doesn't like to be in the crate when people are home. I don't think he loved his crate when we weren't home, but he could deal with it. I stopped crating him after six months and haven't crated for three years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd leave him out of the crate at night since he seems to prefer a dog bed and sleeps well there and move his crate to where your other hound will be during the day and just crate him when you leave.

Judy, mom to Darth Vader, Bandita, And Angel

Forever in our hearts, DeeYoGee, Dani, Emmy, Andy, Heart, Saint, Valentino, Arrow, Gee, Bebe, Jilly Bean, Bullitt, Pistol, Junior, Sammie, Joey, Gizmo, Do Bee

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Lannie79

Thanks for the response. We'll try baby gates instead of the crate tonight.

 

I'm hoping he does better in the crate when we leave. We're going to start testing it for short intervals this afternoon.

Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We just muzzle our foster and foster failure (got them both not quite three weeks ago) when we leave and have not had any problems whatsoever. If he doesn't like the crate, try that.

...............Chase (FTH Smooth Talker), Morgan (Cata), Reggie (Gable Caney), Rufus
(Reward RJ). Fosters check in, but they don't check out.
Forever loved -- Cosmo (System Br Mynoel), March 11, 2002 - October 8, 2009.
Miss Cosmo was a lady. And a lady always knows when to leave.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

well heck, look at it from the dogs POV. If you were taken from a home you were comfortable in and brought to a new house where you were stuck in a box for most of the time and only let out to relieve yourself.....wouldn't you be unhappy?

The dog has already been partially transitioned to being crate free and it makes sense to me that he is whining.

However this is what a trial period is for. If using a crate is expected in your home, and this dog isn't adapting well to it, then perhaps this isn't the right match for you.

Don't take me wrong, I understand that there are dogs out there that are actually happy in a crate. I haven't actually met one though. Of the 5 greys I've had I used a crate for exactly 2 hrs with the first one. He was miserable and so was I. I returned the crate the next morning and got a dog bed instead and have never looked back

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Lannie79

We left him out of the crate last night and baby-gated the stairs. He slept peacefully on the extra dog bed in our bedroom all night. Once he gets settled and we can trust both dogs, they normally have free run of the house. Until then we want to crate him to protect him (and our house) while we are at work. We tried the crate for short time periods during the day and it went fine. We'll keep working on it.

 

Thanks for your suggestions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...