Our 16month old lab Rocky has been great from day 1 with going to bed, not chewing and recall. We are working on jumping up He can be left alone during the day or evening for anything up to a maximum of 4 hours but this is not every day as and not all the time and again he is great with this. However all of a sudden on Friday nightm he is refusing to go into the kitchen and into his bed. We can't even bribe hi mwith treats or his favourite cheese. From the day we brought him moe until March, he slept in a crate in the kitchen next to a cupboard that houses our boiler. We removed the crate in March and had no issues at all with him. You would say bedtime and off he would go to the kitchen and his bed. Wehn we go out during the day we say 'be a good boy' and again off he goes to his bed. But these last few days trying to get him in the kitchen and his bed have been a nightmare and I really don't know what has brought it on or how to deal with it. I don't want to drag him into his hed and stress him out even more but not sure how to deal with this. Once he is on his bed and in the kitchen and we close the door he appears to be fine - doesn't wine and hasn;t chewed anything. Any help/advise would be really apreciated. Thanks
I'd be moving his bed. He's telling you he's scared to go in there, so the worst thing you can do is force him. I have a fearful dog and know just how damaging that can be. Just by not forcing him - and that means even trying to encourage, bribe and coerce him to go in - you will likely find that, in time, he'll work out how to go in there again. But by making it a big stressful event to get him in, you're compounding his feelings that it's a bad place. It doesn't really matter why this has happened, just that it has.
Lie @snowbunny I would be moving the bed to a location that he is happy to go to. The reasons for it happening are unimportant and you are unlikely to find the cause; what is important is that he has a new in a location in which he feels safe. Just because he's not whining or chewing doesn't mean he's relaxed and sleeping. I sometimes explain it to clients using our own fears - spiders for instance. If you have a fear of spiders and there is one in your bedroom are you going to be willing to go in the room, get into bed and turn off the light? Perhaps not....
I like that analogy! Taking it one step further, if you're forced into that room, you may eventually fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion, but are you going to sleep well, or fitfully? Are you going to wake up feeling refreshed or still on edge? What is the likely impact on your behaviour the following day?
I lived in Australia for a year and one day, talking on the phone in the bedroom, was a spider on the wall the size of a side plate. It makes me feel physically sick thinking about it even now, 13 years later. I had to call my then husband to leave work and come to remove the spider as I was frozen in fear. I couldn't sleep in the bedroom for a month after that; even now, if there was a certain sized spider in a room in my house, I wouldn't be able to go in there unless it was removed. So yes, good analogy @Jojo83.
I’ve seen this in other dogs. Could be a bee stung him there or a mouse came through at night. You may never know why it happened.
