It doesn't sound like her anxiety in her crate is THAT bad, so I think you should keep with the crate training. We gave up on crate training pretty early on because we literally could not even throw the garbage out (down the hall!) without him peeing and scratching his nose on the door.

It definitely does sound like anxiety though. Have you tried putting her in the crate, and just walking out the room, then coming back in? Perhaps you leaving the apartment completely is too much for her right now? How long do you leave her crated by herself at home?

We no longer leave anything on for him. No lights. No radio or tv. We keep the light in the next room on so he's not in complete darkness. Just dim. We also no longer leave him a treat to keep him busy. Our experience with this was that once he's finished his treat, he's all hyped up from the excitement of eating that it translates quickly into anxiety! Gus still will not play with his toys when we leave him at home. He will just sleep. He's not perfect still. We have now had to mount two baby gates on top of each other to practically make a WALL to confine him. He will still have some bad days where he'll cry and maybe pee. But i would say that 80% of the time, he is good now.

I would suggest that you start really slow. Start with just leaving the room. Then leaving the apartment for SECONDS. Then for minutes, and just slowly build her up to the cues of you leaving. I definitely suggest the Skype webcam too! If you have a smartphone, it's a great way to spy on her while you're away When we started the separation training, we spent many evenings in the hallway of our condo spying on Gus haha. It's a lot of work. And it takes a lot of time and patience. But it's worth it!

Have you tried not leaving bedding? My pup would pee on bedding if I left anything in there, so I just stopped putting anything in the crate with him aside from chew toys and a stuffed husky friend. Once I did that, he stopped peeing in the crate. Eventually I was able to leave an old pillow in for him, and after he went a couple months without destroying or peeing on the pillow, I got him a nice bed.

We have been leaving the room and coming back in with decent results. Every morning/night we will feed her in the cage and leave her be and then come back 5 minutes later to take the bowl away and let her out. I think we may be expecting too much too soon. It varies how long we leave her alone but so far 30 minutes was the longest where I've returned to her still laying down enjoying the Kong. I don't think she even knew I left or came back, which was quite funny.

I think we'll start leaving the hallway light on for her and practice opening and closing the front door rather than the bedroom door. I have not tried taking the bedding out as I thought she wouldn't be comfortable but it is worth a shot. I can't blame her completely for this anxiety though. We moved into our apartment in September (had her since August) and within the first week had to leave her alone for 9 hours while we went to work. She caught us off guard because the first few days she didn't have a single accident in the crate. Mind you she was only 3-4 months old at the time. But now, there's an accident every time. Thankfully, she only pees in the crate. We are starting day care next week because it's unfair that she spends all that time in the crate.

Great idea with daycare! 9hrs alone in a crate for a 4-5mth old is definitely too long to go without a stretch and a potty break. Gus used to go to daycare everyday, and then in the evening, when he was nice and pooped out, we would practice our separation training. Now, we have the dogwalker (same people from the daycare) come and he gets to go to the beach for a 1.5hr hike! He comes home a little dirty sometimes, but tired and happy Also, daycare was a great way to get him socialized! When we first brought him home (he was a rescue) at 4mths old, he was very timid around other dogs. You should see him now! He's the annoying one at the park now that keeps bugging other dogs to chase him haha

That's what I'm hoping the daycare will do for her but in no way is it going to be a replacement for exercise since I like our walks everyday and games of fetch/tug. Looking forward to my running partner one day. We are hoping she will be better socialized with people through day care. Dogs, she's a friend to all of them. People, she won't let them pet her. She will go up to people and sniff and sometimes lick their hand but any movement from the person sends her back tracking towards me. She is quite the instigator at the dog park and then looks back at me like, "Why aren't they playing?"

Hi all, just my two cents here- When I got my husky at 8 months old he would let himself out of his crate. Ironically- he LOVES his crate (he's now almost 4 and is currently sleeping in their with the door open.) SO this is what I did. I had a sturdy metal crate and I put Carabiniere's (clips) on each side of the crate to make sure he couldn't pull the ends down- this is how he got out. Then he started opening the latches on the door (smart ***) so I put a clip on their too. I always exercised him to tire him out before asking him to go into his crate and I think this helped some. What really did it for us though- I taught him "crate games." It teaches the dog to stay in the crate and not come out until asked- even if the door is open. So to the dog (psychologically,) there is always a door there, even if the door isn't physically closed. This made a HUGE difference with Rig. I also started giving him frozen kongs stuffed with peanut butter and treats that he ONLY gets when he's in his crate- now if he even sees me pick up a kong he runs in there. As for the bedding in his crate- he's never destroyed anything, but he does sometimes push it to the other end of his crate. I think he just gets too warm sometimes. We used to cover his crate in the very beginning- but one day he pulled the blanket in and had chewed a small hole.. his head got stuck in the hole and he must have panicked trying to get it off because he had it wound so tight around his neck we couldn't even get a finger between his neck and the blanket. We ended up cutting the blanket to get it out of the top of the crate and then continually chopping at it to get it off as fast as possible. I got REALLY lucky- if we had gotten home even ten minutes later, he probably wouldn't be here.. So just be careful. Patience is key- I got lucky, Rig has never really been very destructive so he was in his crate less than 6 months from the time I got him. Good Luck!

i like the ideas of crate games! And sorry, i should have been more clear about my crate training too. We did not give up completely We just knew that crating him all day while we were at work was not going to be an option for him because of the severity of his separation anxiety, and crate anxiety. And in order to tackle one at a time, separately, we decided not to crate him while we were not home.

However, we did continue our crate training in that we fed him every meal in there, and most importantly, we made him sleep in his crate. At first, we put his crate in our bedroom so he could see us, and slowly moved it out of room. For a month or so, he would wake up every night at 4am and cry until i told him to go back to bed. I knew it wasn't a potty cry because ever since we brought him home at 4mths old, he has never had to potty at night. He was just testing to see if i would let him out Then one day, everything changed! He willingly goes in there to take a nap during the day, (sort of) willingly goes in there to sleep at night. We keep his door open now, and he will go sleep in there at night all by himself. He loves his crate now!

We still do not crate him during the day as his "room" is bigger and he has learned to be alone in that area, so i don't really want to mess with that. But don't give up on the crate training! Even if it's not to crate her all day, it's a good idea for her to be comfortable with being in a crate because at one point in her life, she will be crated whether she likes it or not!

Thanks for the advice. I think we will try some crate games since I'd like for her to nap in there during the day on weekends but I could understand if she didn't want to because the crate is in our bedroom and we would be out in the living room. A little update though since we've been video taping her throughout the day. A long walk (30 minutes-1 hour) before crating really knocked her out. The Kong distracts her while we left and then she slept all day. Kind of made for a boring video. We only had her crated for 6 hours each time but not a single howl or cry. Today, I left a pair of old sweatpants in her crate and she slept with her head on them for most of the day. So, I'd have to also suggest the piece of clothing in the crate (if you can spare it).

Down the road, I'd like to leave her out of the crate in a confined hallway when I know she could hold it the whole day. I think she has a good understanding of what things she can chew on plus I'd never know if she was destructive if I never try. Most of the time if we aren't paying her attention, she will play fetch with herself so I'd think she would keep herself entertained along with the puzzle toys we give her.