Last night I taught the Thursday night ABC class. Katrin had been felled with a major migraine. I brought Carmen anyway thinking she could work on being comfortable in the crate. I didn't feed her and brought a kong for her.
Well, she SCREAMED the entire time. I jinxed myself with my previous post!! : (
The upside is, I remember about a year and a half ago when I first started bringing Ike crated to club meeting and stuff like that - he yelled a lot too. Not quite as consistently as Ms. Carmen, but he did yell. Now Ike is great crated at club meetings, seminars, and trial sites.
The lesson? Don't despair if at first your dog HATES being crated in public. They can get used to it!
2 months ago
5 comments:
How do you get past the initial screaming in the crate? Don't people hate you?!
I learned a LONG time ago to just ignore the other people. I went to a seminar and was really concerned about it, and the presenter told me we could all be more than capable of ignoring a perfectly happy dog making perfectly happy noises in her crate. ;D
Tessie doesn't scream, she... woo-woos. It's sort of like she's making bird calls. Aroo-woo-woo, AROO WOO WOO!!! the whole time she's in a car and often at a trial. Kongs only shut her up for a little while. It's her "I am excited and can't wait to do stuff!!!" noise. Short of e-collars and prescription sedatives we have tried everything to shut her up. Nothin' doin'. She wants the whole world to know she is STOKED to be out of the house and doing something.
I solve the problem by getting to trials/crated classes early and crating her early. If the noise bothers you, don't crate near the noise-making at a show -- it's pretty easy for the other exhibitors. When I/Dan am there we keep the door open which makes her think she could be asked to do something at any moment, which shuts her up. But when we're off volunteering, she does woo to a varying degree based on how many runs she's had.
She does shut up... eventually. Fortunately, it's not the kind of vocalizing other dogs join in on and her quiet woos are very easy to ignore (according to other people, not just me). After her first run, she's pretty quiet and it's just background woo-ing.
I think they do! And it is motifying! Last night I eventually put Carmen in the car and she still kept screaming.: )
I wouldn't be mortified. We have all been there at one time or another! Itw as funny that she was not worried when Lael had her but wanted nothing to do with me. She actually did a walk it and wait with Lael. Lael stopped though because she was afraid of undoing something!
Great job with class last night. We had a good time!
Eh, I still think it is a bit mortifying, but not the kind of mortifying I stress about! ;-P
Thanks for the kind words!
Makin did AWESOME with the table last night. I was very impressed!
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