Oh dear....

[flick]

The day that she arrived, shortly before I went to bed I put Jodie on her bed in one of the store rooms, locked the door between there and the kitchen, and off we both went to sleep: not a peep out of her until she heard Mike moving around the next morning, although she'd obviously had a little bit of a scrabble at the outside door.

Last night, on the other hand....

I put her on her bed, and she followed me back to the kitchen. I put her back on her bed with a chew, and she followed me back a bit before stopping to have a drink. I went upstairs and was just getting undressed when the thudding noises started, as she threw herself against the door. They stopped after a couple of minutes, just about for long enough for her to check out all the space she had access to for alternate escape routes, then she started scratching. Then thudding. Then scratching....

I didn't want to come downstairs and let her out again, even to tell her off, because it seems like that gives her the attention she's after (even if it's negative attention). She didn't sleep in her bed at all last night, presumably she stayed in front of the door.

While we could move her bed to the spot she likes to lie in in the kitchen, it'll be far more visible if she also trashes the door between the kitchen and the rest of the house.

(Neither of us wants her sleeping in our bedroom at night, and we're trying -- with quite a bit of success -- to teach her that she's not allowed upstairs at all. I can't imagine that working once we're asleep and she can plonk herself down where she likes.)

Help! Do we just keep putting her in the same place and ignoring her, or do we give up? I am genuinely a little concerned about how long the door will hold up if she goes at it as much as she went at the frame last night.

Comments

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes, super idea: I'll take her back to the rescue, where she can go back to spending 23 hours a day in a cage failing to be adopted because she has a breathing problem, is enormous and strong, and needs to be somewhere with lots of land. Because that would obviously be a better solution than being aware of the fact that her owner just died and trying to work with her to get over her abandonment fears while also letting her spend most of her waking hours yomping around in our fields, getting fussed over and being in company with humans.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

You know, Ina and I were just saying how wonderful it was that you and Mike never for a moment considered taking her back. Damn it, all dogs are problems at some stage. Draco was crated for eighteen months, then decided that he was NOT STANDING FOR IT and barked and scrabbled so much Ina allowed him to sleep with her. Bren, on the other hand, sleeps in the sitting room but demands to be let out about 5 o'clock and wants to be fed. Then he either jumps on my bed and sleeps with me and the cats, or sleeps on the sofa. No problem.

Currently, because they bark and we have neighbours, we are experimenting with a noise-making aerosol and reward when stops training, and it seems to be working...

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

She is, fingers crossed, not a barker. We've had a couple of woof out of her, once when the fence guys came to collect the wire they're selling for scrap and a couple of times when she's got excited when playing.

We've got up to fifteen minutes shut away. She's an ecstatic ball of fluff when she comes out. In fact (sigh) I suppose it's time to pop her back in for a bit longer. Poor thing.