Posted by: "Tracey Rentcome" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Maria,
you were pretty close<G> it was me and the deaf boy Frankie that had bad
separation anxiety.
I sat and wrote the whole long email yesterday and my machine locked up and
crashed and I thought - oh well, I'll get to it tomorrow<G>.
Basically, we changed to an ex-pen from a crate because he was already nuts
about the crate (and still is). We moved it to a different location (was in
bedroom, now he goes in family room).
We spent 1 minute on obedience, then put him in ex-pen with his "lovies" -
blankie and rope chewie. Set timer for 1 min and then walked away - no big
fuss, just ignored him. Went back after 1 min then did 2 mins obedience and
left him in pen for 2 mins...gradually increased the obedience time to no
more than 10 mins, but gradually increased his time in ex-pen up to a couple
of hours (it took all weekend to work up to that though). When he fell
asleep in his ex-pen, I left him there until he woke up, left him a couple
minutes then let him out and began again...(they only have little lemon
brains and get very tired with all the "work" you expect them to do! LOL).
The idea behind this approach is to take the dogs mind off the fact he is
being left, and make him focus on the fact he is going to be asked to "do
stuff" any minute! LOL It completely redirects their thoughts of being
crated.
It took us all weekend to work up to leaving him for a couple of hours in
the pen. He was just fine when we did the test - we all put him in with his
lovies and went off to dinner. Came back a couple of hours later and he was
soundly asleep in his pen still!
He is now ok to leave up to several hours with no problems, but we cannot
crate him at all (too upsetting for him) and he will not be ex-penned in the
bedroom (too dark? bad Karma? Who knows? But when I tried it, he dragged the
ex-pen all around the bedroom trying to get out! Yet he sleeps in there
every night with us, so go figure! LOL).
Tracey Rentcome
Great Dane Rescue of Houston, Inc.
(281)894-9239
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
