I really do hope you can find a solution and I realise I'm coming across as being harsh, but you need to have a long think of how you're going to tackle this, using all the advice given, and whether it is possible for you to do the things you've said you can't, because that's what she needs.
Thanks, all, for the advice and straight-shooting - @snowbunny, no offense taken. I appreciate you being straightforward and honest. And you're right, if I can't give her what she needs, my responsibility to her is to find her someone who can - and as soon as possible, while she is still young. I will take it all to heart and work with her on this. I'm committed. I'm going to hire a trainer to help, but here are my thoughts right now. We just did five minutes of her going willingly into the crate on command, happily and quietly getting clicked/treated while in there, and letting me walk out the front door and in again as well as into the bathroom and bedroom and back each time. I left her for ten seconds during the second front door time. I'm going to give some hard thought to how I can reconfigure my life so that I never leave her to howl in the crate. I switched from my first puppy class where the teacher told me, way back in late August, that I needed to "buy earplugs" and just let her cry it out, to the one I'm currently in. So I think early on I was getting the message that it was "normal" for her to cry a bit. I've minimized the howling/crying, believe me - I think we can turn this around more quickly than it might seem. My instincts were telling me it is not normal. I'm also going to set up the ex-pen tonight and put the crate in it with door open, in hopes that in a "new space" we can build positive associations. And I guess I will have to puppy-proof a bit more, and consider sending my older dog to the bedroom with baby gate when she needs a break from him, instead of crating her. The two biggest things I still need to think on: dealing with my son in the mornings (maybe I just need to put her on-leash?) and my wood-stacking project. Must stack it in the next month or else it will freeze to the ground and we will freeze this winter. I am pretty broke, but maybe I will see if I can hire a high-school kid to do the stacking. Another option would be to have her off-leash outside with me and go slower and work on recall in between stacking. Not sure what to do there. Tying her to something on a long line seems to incite whining/crying even if she's right near me, but it might not be as bad if she can see me.
Good to hear. You know, when I have a training problem, sometimes just having a "GAGH!" moment, writing everything down and getting it our of my head, with some brainstorming, helps me to approach it in a more methodical and calmer way and, sometimes, without much effort, everything just slots into place. Hopefully that will happen here, just by making some adjustments here and there. Can you take the pen outside for when you're stacking the wood? And break it up into a minute of stacking, a minute of playing, gradually increasing the time you get to stack before it's playtime again? Or play games that distract her for a few minutes - get her to hunt for a toy or some food, for example. A cardboard box filled with crumpled paper and a handful of treats chucked in, for example?
Even working on heel work/recall while you're stacking, maybe? Pick up a few logs, then run around with them, praising her for following you, before you put them on the pile and grab some more... just trying to think of ways you can make good use of the time you have to be out there.
Great ideas @snowbunny! Yes, I've really gotten stuck in a frustrated/overwhelmed state of mind with it all and got all hopeless and teary. I also really needed to hear that NO, she shouldn't "howl it out." I've been getting/reading such mixed messages.
That's the spirit - much better to be positive and work out how you can do it. You could try to get her being ok with being on a lead around your waist while you work outside - you'd want to train this before you start doing things like stacking logs though. My dog was injured when he was young, and he was on a lead in the house, in the garden, everywhere - for 8 months. It was really strange, but we had no choice, we had to do it. He got used to it very quickly - I once served an entire dinner for 8 guests with my dog at heel on a hunting lead in the house.
There is a booklet available - here: http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/store/I-ll-Be-Home-Soon.html Which I haven't read myself, but the reviews are very good - and I really rate the author. I have many of her other books and DVDs. It might help.
Thanks @JulieT - I bought and read it a few weeks ago when this was even worse than now (at least I can now get some minutes of peace in the crate while I'm in the room doing things). I decided I wasn't sure she was really having separation anxiety based on the symptoms she gave, and it seemed to apply to older dogs. I set this up tonight. So far, they love it. I have the door permanently open for now, just going to make it an awesomely fun space to hang out in for a while and click and treat for being in there, then follow kikopup's protocol I posted above, and never shut her in there when I can't be working on training her to like it in there. Not sure about Burke's bed in there, unless I always put them both in - which is another option that might even help her feel less alone? His bed is otherwise outside on the porch as he prefers the couches and human beds and my house is tiny (you're looking at about a fourth of the main floor footprint). Anyway, haven't thought that through, it just looked really roomy in there and I wanted to see how it fit and he immediately checked it out. The new dog zone. by bodhimama, on Flickr
I really have nothing to add to the excellent advice already given, and I also don't have the added stresses you have to deal with on a daily basis. I just wanted to wish you luck and say I really admire your determination to succeed when many would have thrown in the towel - you go for it and you will get there I am sure. Looks like both dogs approve of the new set up
Thanks for all the advice and support and the good luck. I will need it! One scenario I forgot about is walking Burke. He's 80 pounds of energetic 7yo dog, and his hour-long walks were really key for getting some of his energy out. I can't walk her that long, so the only option is to crate her while I walk him. (And crate or not, she cries when I leave the house so it doesn't matter where she is - she will be anxious if she can't go.) So now I have no clue what to do about that. Today I took them off-leash on my land and he ran off into the woods and wouldn't respond to recall (he usually does) and had his nose down just crazed. Oh, wait, he responded - by barreling past me. I finally (after getting out hot dog and getting him close to the house before he took off again) gave up and went inside and he showed up at the door ten minutes later, luckily without a bunch of porcupine quills in his face, but sheesh. Gave me a scare, especially since he's a car chaser. So, any great brainstorms for how to tire out my giant lab-poodle cross while giving Bessie what she needs are welcome. I do lots of training with him, taking turns with who's in a down stay and who gets trained, but I'm out of ideas for what to do with him re: training, as he is very uncoordinated and his hips aren't the greatest. Like he isn't going to be doing spins or rolling over.
Does Burke like finding things? I get an old muffin tin and 12 tennis balls, then put either kibble or treats or a mix of both in each of the holes in the tin and then cover with the balls. Bailey loves this and when he is being awkward about eating his kibble it is the best way to get him to eat it. If Burke does like finding things can you hide some stuff around the house/in an area he can't run off and get him to seek them out? Sure more experience owners will have other ideas but these are two I do with Bailey and he loves them
I've now bought, downloaded and read this as an e-book. I thought it was pretty good - particularly the section of exercises through 5 weeks in order to be able to leave the dog. But I'm a bit confused by your comments. The book seems quite clear that some puppies can come predisposed to being anxious about being left alone - why did you think it was only about older dogs? I can quite appreciate you may not think your dog has separation anxiety, but there is a lengthy section on telling the difference between other problems and separation anxiety, and in your posts above, you ask whether your dog has separation anxiety. What are the signs your dog has that makes you think she doesn't have separation anxiety (or does, I'm not quite clear what you think, exactly)?
You know, I think I read it long enough ago (3-4 weeks?) that I concluded that probably I just needed to do more crate training. That she was whining/crying for my attention more than out of anxiety/stress. And because sometimes she seems fine in the crate even if I leave the house. I might have been overly dismissive of it, though, because I did not want to face the reality of having to find another person so that I never have to leave her, until the problem is solved. And the, per my post here a couple of weeks ago, we seemed to have turned the corner when I upped the ante with much tastier Kongs, lots of hot dogs and fresh chicken for going in the crate, etc. And then suddenly it switched back again and she seemed to become worse with it again. I had a crate training log but my computer ate part of it, but I need to go back and look at how far I got. @Samantha Jones -- thanks for that idea! He might indeed like something like the muffin tin. He has never seemed to be able to master "finding" hidden objects, but it will be interesting to see if he could be taught to do that and if he likes it. He is quite liking Kongs at the moment and never did, so who knows! I never thought he'd be a Kong dog; he isn't much of a chewer at all.
I have on,y ever had one dog at a time, but there are several members on the forum who have more than one. But I feel for you. Puppies are a lot of work, and two dogs can be a lot of work. So you have your work cut out for you! I don't know what to suggest exactly about the "separation anxiety" issue, but I'm glad to see you taking some of the suggestions given here and finding some progress made. That is good. As to things to do with your older dog, Samantha has the right idea. Brain games can tire your pooch out too. And they are easy on the joints! You can have him do some "find it" games - have him in a sit/stay and then "hide" a piece of kibble in a nearby room, and then get him to go find it. Start very easy at first - have the kibble in the middle of the floor. Gradually work it into harder and harder places - put it on chairs, or even under things as he gets better at finding. Or more than one piece. You could also look at this thread on what to do with a dog on restricted exercise - lots of ideas there on what to do with a dog who isn't getting a lot of exercise for whatever reason. http://thelabradorforum.com/threads/things-to-do-for-dogs-on-restricted-exercise.10654/
Wanted to say thanks for all the suggestions. We're working slowly on positive crate time with me elsewhere. Today I got through a shower and she was fine, though she started whining to be let out as soon as I got out of the shower. Also working on leaving her briefly while I go into another room, like if she's on the couch sleeping I'll go to the basement and close the door. Used to be she'd follow and howl and scratch at the door while I was down there, but she's tolerating more separation from me. Baby steps.
Also try not to have 'greeting' celebrateions when you get home. The dog can anticipate this and the anticipation makes the anxiety worse. With Bruce I made lots of trips outside to the bin etc, just a quick in and out but locking the doors etc as I did it, with no comment to the dog on leaving or returning. This helped a lot.
Thanks @Boogie - definitely not having emotional greets, just a matter of fact letting her out, etc. She's doing REALLY well with being left in the exercise pen vs the crate. Have experimented a bit and the ex-pen is way easier to get her to settle in while I'm not there. It's open 90% of the time, their food and toys are in there, there is a bed outside the crate as well as in it. She most often chooses the bed outside the crate. I throw in a bunch of treats for her to find, either crunchy biscuits or chewy ones, and/or give her a bully stick or kong - but the hide-and-seek game gets her distracted for the first few minutes and then she doesn't mind as much when she realizes she's shut in. She will whine/complain lightly off and on but mostly settle. Not talking true panic type stuff, just being noisy to get attention. (The howling/panic happens in the crate more often than not, especially if I'm not in the room, and often within 3-4 minutes.) But still working on building up time slowly with both. She gets at least one session with each per day.
Reading another post on crate training reminded me that I never updated this. I think it's good to update to see where we got with all of this. The crate just never worked. Maybe being at the shelter in a crate affected her more strongly than I realized even though it was only for a few days. It seemed to trigger panic most of the time. I used the ex-pen for a while, but around 6 months old, she got reliable enough with not chewing stuff, and I basically puppy-proofed the rest of the main floor, so that she could be left out when I left. It turns out more than "separation anxiety," she has what is called "barrier frustration." So, behind a baby gate, in the ex-pen, upstairs when I'm in the basement with a closed door--this is what would trigger howling and clawing at me, trying to get to me. This has eased over time and with training. Basically, lots of short stints of her being behind a barrier, trying not to let her get to the howling/clawing phase, working up time slowly with lots of positive reinforcement in the way of praise, treats, etc. My older guy is more anxious when I leave than she is, but she's been picking up many of his behaviors. So I've done a lot of the basic separation anxiety protocols with them too: putting on shoes, getting keys, opening the door and going onto the porch, then coming back inside. That kind of thing. Trying to mix it up. Then I started with short periods of leaving them home alone and slowly worked up. They've both been doing really well. For both of them, the most anxious time seems to be when I leave, so leaving them with stuffed Kongs works really well because they're too busy to worry about me leaving. She's going to be a year old in a couple of weeks! I can't believe it. Mostly she's a joy at this point. I was trying to remember how intense it was just a few months ago with counter surfing and chewing stuff. She's great. She leaps at people when greeting; that's her only really bad remaining habit. I've been able to take each of them on solo walks without much issue. And I got no-pull Freedom harnesses and have been taking them together, too. Yes, I would like to train them not to pull, but I have an irritated/inflamed rotator cuff so I cannot have any pulling at all, and they're close to 150 lb together, and Bessie's all muscle and super strong. So this allows me to work on proper loose-leash walking without irritating my shoulder, plus they both get the exercise they need (one walk together, one walk alone each day) so training is that much easier.
