Apologies in advance for the long post... We got our puppy Koda at 4.5 months. We did crate training, but at an accelerated pace because of our work schedules (already less that ideal I know). For the first 3 months he seemed to do fine with us crating him from about 8-11 and 12-3:30. He would whine or bark for about 5 minutes then settle down with his kong or to sleep. After about 2 months we switched to a dog walker for the middle of the day and didn't hear any problems from her about him settling in his crate in the middle of the day. Koda puts himself to sleep in his crate in our bedroom at night with no issues. He also does doggie daycare two days a week. Now he will not settle in his crate during the day and howls/whines and ignores food, kongs, and bully sticks until we're back in the room. I think it started a few weeks ago when my husband let him out of his bedtime crate because he whined and started napping with him on the couch in the mornings instead. We used to occasionally go back to bed on the weekends and Koda would sleep for another hour to two with no problems. I was sleeping in the guest bedroom with a cold that week and then going to work, so I don't know the details of how often DH let him out for whining. We started to have trouble with him crying during the day and talked about not letting Koda out for whining. Then the next week my husband switched to telework because of coronavirus while I was at work. He didn't say there were any problems, but the following week while I was off work I noticed that Koda was much more anxious in his crate and wouldn't settle after 20 minutes of howling/whining and wouldn't touch his food. I asked about the previous week and found out that my husband had let him cry in his crate for 2-3 hours thinking the puppy would get over it eventually. I am worried that the level of anxiety and howling he's doing will give him a an even worse association with being in his crate. Today I left him on the couch in the blocked off livingroom until I get home from a halfday at the office. I'm hoping he won't get up to too much chewing while I'm gone. He likes to chew the stepdown in the livingroom so I blocked that off with a gate and my husband will give him a kong or two while I'm away. So the question is should I try to re-introduce the crate starting from scratch or should I decrate during the day? If I should try to re-crate train is there any difference in the technique for older puppies that have already decided that they don't like the crate and have at least mild separation anxiety. My husband is home during the day, but isn't likely to be much help implementing a solution. Thanks.
Well yesterday went ok. Koda slept in the morning, ate a kong, and generally hung out in the livingroom on his own for about 3 hours. After a nice long walk and some playtime he spent another 45 minutes on his own in the afternoon. He did annihilate a colored pencil my husband left on the table, but otherwise did great for his first non-crate day. We're trying day two. If this goes as well we'll plan to decrate during the day in 3-4 hour segments while one of us is home. That way we can keep an ear out for possible mischief or anxiety.
