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Jo 3, crate 0
Yesterday, we took Jo to the vet to check that there wasn't anything physically wrong with her. She's now got a clean bill of health and a pack of over-priced woo-woo pills, made from milk protein and designed to mimic the way that babies get stoned on breastmilk.
Needless to say, they made absolutely no difference last night when we moved the crate back downstairs and put her in it at bedtime. Mike, who is apparently softer-hearted than I am, gave in after fifteen minutes of banging and crashing. I needn't have bothered going downstairs to get her, though, because fifteen minutes was apparently all that the crate could stand as well:
I've ordered her a new dog bed for in our bedroom, and I guess the crate will be off to the tip on our next trip.
In better news, I did an hour's weeding yesterday with no ill effects, and the drive is now looking neater. Somewhat to my surprise, the spare sweetpeas that I put out there a couple of months ago are doing pretty well even though they got swallowed up by nettles and grass coming through the fence very soon after planting. Hopefully now that I've been able to give them some breathing space they'll bulk up a bit, because I think they would look nice growing over the fence.
Needless to say, they made absolutely no difference last night when we moved the crate back downstairs and put her in it at bedtime. Mike, who is apparently softer-hearted than I am, gave in after fifteen minutes of banging and crashing. I needn't have bothered going downstairs to get her, though, because fifteen minutes was apparently all that the crate could stand as well:
I've ordered her a new dog bed for in our bedroom, and I guess the crate will be off to the tip on our next trip.
In better news, I did an hour's weeding yesterday with no ill effects, and the drive is now looking neater. Somewhat to my surprise, the spare sweetpeas that I put out there a couple of months ago are doing pretty well even though they got swallowed up by nettles and grass coming through the fence very soon after planting. Hopefully now that I've been able to give them some breathing space they'll bulk up a bit, because I think they would look nice growing over the fence.
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Has she always had problems sleeping by herself?
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I've videoed her overnight a couple of times, and on the recordings she just goes straight to sleep on her sofa, legs in the air, until she hears Mike moving around and goes to wait (excited but not frantic) by the door.
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I'll hope you can make the crate hold together (and Mike cold-hearted enough) for it to sink in.
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When we first had her, she was trying to get through a proper, solid door, with a lock. (Even so, we had to get the door and frame replaced after she'd been at it for three (four?) nights. Note to self: must re-paint the living room door.) The living room door doesn't lock and she's learnt that if she slams into it enough then she can bump the latch and open it, because it's a double door. If we get a new crate, she's learnt that she can get out of them if she tries hard enough, so she's just going to keep flinging herself at the joins.
(Plus, the door has glass in it, and we're worried that she'll break it and hurt herself, or rip a claw scrabbling at the door or the crate, or tip the crate and end up stuck half under the metal base, or just give herself a sore head!)
So rather than trying for a bit to get out and then giving up, which is what she did when we first had her, I think she's now just going to keep at it, getting more and more frantic, unless we come up with something that either is or seems to be a radically different thing to the door / a crate, and we can't think of what that is.
A baby gate on the stairs won't last five minutes, even if she doesn't just jump over it. I have considered dragging her sofa so that it blocks the doors (they open inward) and then going out onto the patio and letting myself back in through the kitchen, but I suspect that that will just give her greater height for flinging herself from.
Mike did wonder about sedation, but the vet wasn't at all keen and she's usually more clingy not less when she's been sedated for things like x-rays.
She's fine if I crate her and/or leave her alone in the room with the door shut during the day.
Ideas very welcome, because I have pretty much given up and accepted that she's going to spend the rest of her life sleeping in our bedroom....
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Because the answer may be a few nights where whenever she comes into the bedroom you walk her back to her official sleeping spot, make her lie down, tell her she's a good girl, and then go back to bed. And repeat every half an hour until she realises that she's not going to get to sleep in the bedroom.
And this will suck for you to start with. But might actually cause behaviour change, which is what you want.
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Have you any clue what's spooked her? We've done the go to bed and leave Jodie thing lots of times without incident I think. Poor thing.
Edit: also, didn't you sleep downstairs with her a couple of times when you were acclimatising her to the crate? Do you think that would help?
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It was probably a combination of things, but I think mostly that the people I left her with weren't quite so familiar as you are. Possibly also a bit that I didn't actually put her on her sofa, as it was being used. She'd had a disturbed day (although not night) the day before as well.
I never did sleep downstairs, although I have thought about it. I think it would probably count as a win in her little doggy head, and not actually help in the longer term, as she's quite happy to go in the crate when I'm around / in the day time.
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I hope a solution that sticks comes up.
Glad to hear there's no ill effects from the weeding.
Teddy