Crating And Brief Returns During The Day

[Guest GreyKlee]

I was wondering if someone could give me some general crate-training insight and maybe steer my expectations a bit. I have a small Alaskan Klee Kai named Piper with horrible SA, and now my new grey, Freya. Piper is doing wonderfully with another pup around and is quite calm in her crate now (thank goodness!). Freya does wonderfully too... unless you come home in the middle of the day for a few minutes and leave. This isn't something I plan on doing, because it just gets the dogs excited and it's hard for them to calm down.

 

However, my roommate decided to drop a bombshell on me that with Piper's SA, she's purposely been leaving early in the morning and staying out late so she doesn't disturb Piper when left alone. This was without me asking her to do so, and now there's quite a bit of resentment I guess. Now with Freya, she was convinced that she could come and go as she wants since Piper would be "fixed", which apparently means coming home randomly all hours of the day, not letting the dogs out, and then getting upset that they won't calm down. While Freya adjusts (she's only been with me 5 days, poor thing!), I just asked that she either let the dogs out and stay with them, or maybe not come home in the middle of the day, which did not go well...

 

So, to the main two questions:

1. Is there a method to train a dog to stay calm in the crate when you return home/calm down quickly? Best case scenario would be for them to remain crated when the roommate is home, since she's not comfortable with them really or doesn't want to supervise them.
2. Since asking a dog to stay calm when you get home and leave them crated is asking a lot, is there a way to help Freya calm down relatively fast and be ok with going back in? That way the roommate could take them out briefly and re-crate them. In my experience, she's great if you leave her for a long period, but panics the second go around if you come back and leave, even after an hour or so.

This roommate will only be here for another 3 or 4 months, but things will still be tricky if I don't come up with a reasonable training approach or solution. I understand that it could be several weeks until I see improvement, but maybe the effort will be enough to pacify the roommate?

 

[GeorgeofNE]

Hmmm. That's a tough one.

 

My dog with SA did MUCH worse when I tried a mid-day dog walker, because he just got upset twice a day instead of once.

 

You can't reasonably expect someone paying rent to avoid her own home. Nor can you expect her to take care of your dogs. It is certainly not a great situation for the dog. You might entice your roommate with a break on her rent? Ask her to please take the dogs out quickly for a pee break, and then crate them when she leaves again in exchange for $100/mo off the rent?

[Guest Greyt_dog_lover]

Maybe have a box of longer lasting treats (not rawhides, but something like a trachea or fish skin strips) available and when she gets home during the day, have her drop one of the treats in each crate and ignore the dogs while she is there. No interaction at all (ie no correction for barking, no talking to, just simply treat and ignore). Have her drop a treat when she gets in and when she leaves. Something she can do quickly and easily and she doesnt have any responsibility.