had lily hoe since friday (so totally understand that its early days ) during the day she. has a little basket that she sleeps in and then at night we put her in a crate with her blankets,she will cry for about 20 mins once the door is closed ,and she does this approx twice a night.she has not solied in there and uses the garden most of the time .but once we get up in the morning she cries for ages and seems really unsettled. so questions are :

1) am I doing the crate training wrong?

2) why is she so anxious in the mornig when she seems really contents the rest of the day?

3) what about the rest of the week when the routines change ,e.g i go to work approx 9am and the children will be at school,my hubby who works nights gets up about 11-11.30am so lily will be put back in her crate until then ,and then someone will be with her for the rest of the day/night,is putting her back in the crate the right idea?

4) lastly ,when my hubby comes home about 3am in the morning should he let lily out of her crate to see him if she cries,


oh,ps we have a 5 year old retriever who from day one never cried and slept really well so this is a bit new to us,I am not moaaning just want to get it right for lily and us? and just wandered if the crate training is worth persevering with or try something else?

Hi, firstly I would put her basket she uses during the day ino the crate, and leave the door open to it through the day. It may be unsettling that she has 2 beds.

In the morning, let her out (when she is quiet) and make time to have a one on one session of play with her, she has been in there all by her self all night and will be needing some attention. Mine are like that.

How long will she be in the crate for in the rest of the days in the week? If it is not longer than a few hours she can be in the crate, or can you get someone to look in on her/ let her out for toilet.

When hubby comes in she will prob want to see him if he has been away, but do NOT let her out if she is crying, this will teach her that if she cries she gets out and this will bugger up all your crate training. he can let her out once she is quiet but don't get her all exited. Just out to say hello/hug then quietly back to bed. If she gets unsettled by this maybe it would be best to leave her though?


Hope this helps.

x

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We have had a few occasions when one or other of us has come home in the middle of the night and we have just left Oscar (he is 15 weeks now).

It depends if your husband is up and about or just comes in and goes to bed.

If he just goes to bed i would leave the dog alone.

Also as long as she has had some attention and a bit of a play there should be no problem popping her back in the crate when you go in the morning for a couple of hours. I quite often leave Oscar at home while i do the school run and Tesco.

I found a good way of leaving was to put a small handful of kibble in a baby kong in the crate just as you are going and leave a radio on. They like routine when you leave, if i don't now Oscar gets upset.

thanks i have taken all the advise on board and have been busy putting lily into her crate when she fell asleep today, and then gently closing the door,when she woke up she cried so i ignored her for a few minutes and let her out when she stopped crying , she now is going in her crate better and dosent cry whe she wakes up, so am just waiting to see how it goes tonight,but on a plus side she has got the toilet training of to a really good start and is having very vew acidents in the house ,x