crazy when other dogs are next to her crate....

Nikon was the same way.  I used a crate cover and voiced my displeasure (if I say "Hey, no, bad dog!" in a voice that expresses my extreme disappointment, they get the idea, rather than trying to yell repeatedly over the barking).  Often I just had to walk away until he settled, at that point he had "earned" the removal of the cover, and if he did OK at that point, he earned a chance to come out.  Another idea is to give the dog an RMB or something awesome, so they have some distraction while other dogs are close by, and eventually become conditioned to the idea that being in the crate while another dog is working is not the end of the world.

 thanks Lies, I'll try that.

so far if she does it at a time I'm not taking her out, like at bed time when she's already been in there for awhile & the other dogs are coming in. I've been just ignoring the behavior, hoping it'd go away. but it hasn't so I need to try something else.

 So I just had an 'ah ha' moment today. I realized ( she's still doing this behavior btw) that Zoey can be in the crate in the car with Bella in the car & no crazy antics ( it is a different crate though, its wire one, in the house its a vari kennel). So maybe it comes down to the fact that she's actually food aggressive, not barrier aggressive. but only aggressive towards other dogs, not me because I've been doing the NILF & if she has a chewy I actually remain in possession of it & 'let' her chew on it.

So I'm going to research food aggression now! lol

akyramoto82

 So I just had an 'ah ha' moment today. I realized ( she's still doing this behavior btw) that Zoey can be in the crate in the car with Bella in the car & no crazy antics ( it is a different crate though, its wire one, in the house its a vari kennel). So maybe it comes down to the fact that she's actually food aggressive, not barrier aggressive. but only aggressive towards other dogs, not me because I've been doing the NILF & if she has a chewy I actually remain in possession of it & 'let' her chew on it.

So I'm going to research food aggression now! lol

Food aggression directed at other dogs is common, and it's also common for dogs who display food aggression with other dogs to be fine with humans, and great with other dogs in the absence of food.   It's also common for dogs not to react when a conspecific is next to their crate, but go ballistic when it's a stranger.

 so I've decided to switch up her routine, usually she gets her food ball in the crate, last night I had her with it in the living room without the other dogs present. then when it was bed time Bella came in to see me, and Zoey went ballistic, but calmed down after about 20 seconds. so maybe this will help. Obviously the crate has developed a 'food' value in Zoey's eyes. I realized this after watching a vid when I first got her & we were working on her crate command. Bella was present and Zoey had no problem with Bella being near her crate.

 So I've only changed things up for two days now. Last night when it was bed time Zoey was in her crate, and I deliberatly called Bella into the room. NO REACTION!! WOO HOOO!!! I couldn't believe it!! wow, I'm just surprised that it's changed so fast. She now gets her food ball @ work & in the evenings in the living room. YAY!

 so after a couple days Zoey started to get crate crazy again. to the point where Bella didn't even want to come into the bedroom to sleep, she'd just go sleep in the living room. I would say her little fits aren't as crazy as they were before, but she was still doing it. She did seems to stop when i'd tell her 'thats enough'. so anyways I decided to move the crate around to see what that would do. So now her crate is in the hall pointed at the bedroom, so she's still pretty close to where we sleep, but now she's about 15' away. I automatically put a blanket on top of her crate i.e. sleepy nite nite time. Since she's been there (two nights now) NO reactions again. So its getting better, but I don't know if it's a 'cure'.

 just made some progress, went home to put Zoey in her crate ( i let her hang out in the dog run for part of the day, but then it started thundering). So when i put her in the crate Bella came over and Zoey went into her little thing. I just calming told her 'none of it' and she stopped. then when she started again I told her again. And she stopped. Then I went and got some treats and sat there with Bella laying right in front of her crate with Zoey being quiet & rewarded both of them for being calm :) yay progress!!

ron2

Well done, Akyramoto. I was going to say that, at first, when you would pick her up and "knock it off," you were inadvertantly rewarding her with attention and status for her rambunctious behavior. Rewarding her and others for being calm will get you what you want. Sometimes, the hardest part of modifying a behavior is stopping ourselves from rewarding what we don't want. You get what you reinforce.

i do understand that Ron, right now it seems to be what works. Lately I don't have to pick her. but for example when i took her to get spayed there was a dog there and it started barking at her, she was getting nervous so i picked her up -then as soon as she was calm I put her down, and that was the end of it. the dog was still there, but she didn't go back into that crazy state again. when i do pick her up at these times, i don't coddle her or say ' oh its ok baby' etc. I'm in a very neutral state of mind. wished I couldve used the clicker then, but she couldn't have food before her surgery.

but it seems to be with her, the more she isn't allowed to act out the less she gets panicked, for example with the chickens on the long line 10' of line = crazed puppy, shortened up to where she has to be next to me results in her just sitting next to me & looking at them, then C/T when she's quiet. 

I am proud of her small success with the crate though, even though once in awhile she still does it, its not as bad as it was before.

 You get what you reinforce.

Amen to that.  And, it's the hardest concept for some people to get.  They equate reinforcement with cookies or a toy, but often don't realize that attention, even eye contact, can be reinforcing to some dogs.  True, you get what you reinforce, but a reinforcement is something the DOG wants, not what you think he wants, and certainly not always what you think he wants;-)

Sad to say, but some dogs seldom get reinforced sufficiently, either because their handlers have no clue what's important to the dog, or they refuse to recognize and use reinforcements that are valuable to the dog.

One reason it's so easy for some people to train their dogs not to chase squirrels and other people can't seem to manage it without a lot of force is because one of the ways to do that successfully is to actually use squirrel chasing as the reinforcement for a good sit/stay (*but* that sit/stay gets built incrementally, not by going right into squirrel territory).  They also use Premack (the "eat your veggies and then you will get dessert" theory). 

 when i first took Zoey to puppy class I never picked her up, and she was having a fit - I was waiting for her to be calm to reinforce, but then the trainer told me to pick her up & face her away from the stimuli, I was like 'uh....' so thats where i get the picking up from. Before I always just would wait until she decided to pay attention to me or be calm so I could reinforce. I always figured - let her have her fit, she'll get ignored for it, but as soon as she's calm she'll get treats/praise.

And the other thing with puppy class - more so on the first day when we had off leash play, is physically picking her up was the only option to keep something from escalating, and maybe setting her back with being social with other puppies, if the puppies were on leash I would have the option to remove her with out picking her up, but that wasn't the case during that first encounter. Oh and it is aggrivating when we have our pups on leash and I keep telling one lady that my dog needs her space and she keeps looking away and letting her dog wander over to Zoey, so I was stuck with constantly moving her about every time someone's dog decided that it wanted to come over while the owner was off in 'la la land'.

So I guess I need to retrain myself back to how I originally was?

I don't pick her up with the chickens, I haven't picked her up again with her being a butt to Amber, so the only time I did it again was at her appointment, but I didn't continue to hold her.  It was just one of those situations where I had not had enough opportunities to train her to have the right reaction - since I don't know many strange dogs to train with. So it was bad planning on my part. Previously at my vet, she could be in the same waiting room with 3 or 4 dogs and had no problems, no barking nothing. She'd look at them, they would bark at her, and she would just sit there. Luckily it was only one time where i had to pick her up - but that can be very reinforcing in itself - just like it only takes a dog one time to get into the garbage to get rewarded & do it again anytime he/she gets a chance.

Looking back I almost wished I had asked the guy to stay back further - cuz he approached, Zoey was fine, his dog started barking at her and Zoey decided that it wasn't ok, and the guy was saying 'quit it' or something similar and thwacking his dog on the butt. I almost thing that if he was back another 5'then everything would've been fine. I purposely got there to be first in line to set Zoey up for success so she wouldn't be sitting in a room of strange dogs - this particular office has a VERY small waiting room - I'm talking like 10 x 8' or something, it's teeny.

I had been using kinda  a premack principle with the cars - because waiting until she was calm wasn't working, the opportunity was too short - I imagine if the car stopped and sat there running I might have an opportunity, but they go by so fast she doesn't' think about it & just reacts.  So I started to hold her by the collar when the car came by and give her a handful of treats, that seemed to work a little bit. I did this religiously for about 2 or 3 weeks. some times it was a really good reaction, and one time I even saw her lick her lips when a car drove by ( but we were far from it, out of her threshold area). Then the other day I tried something different, and it seemed to have a good effect on her. The reason I tried something different is a particular car drove by and she very enthusiastically at the treat from my hand - but with almost too much force than I was comfortable with.

So I tried this - hold her by the collar, placing one hand on chest,( she's in the sitting position) and as the car drove by ( we were as far from it as physically possible) I purposely exhaled very slowly - relaxing myself. The few times I did this rather than get all crazy about the car she sat there and looked up at me as if to say 'what are you doing??' So I was hoping since I was intently relaxing my body & slowing my breath that would transfer over to her. And it seemed like it worked pretty well. I know it sounds kinda stupid and 'zen' but it seemed to relax her.

When she had a good reaction I praised the crap outta her, which she loved and totally ignored any lingering 'I wanna chase that' feelings.

 Spiritdogs, how much of the crate problem do you think is resource guarding??

I'm going to get 'Mine' by Jean Donaldson soon. Do you think that book will help with this situation?