heeelp! Crate training; gradual vs. sudden

I am not familiar with pits and I don't think it's possible for a dog to be "autistic" because we cannot diagnose how they communicate....but as for the crating.... my method may seem a bit rushed but it has worked for me.  I simply put the dog in the crate without a big to-do.  Usually there are some sorts of safe chews (something that the dog can't swallow and choke while I'm not around).  Depending on if the dog is a chewer/shredder, there may or may not be bedding.  From day 1 dogs must go in the crate.  They can throw a fit all they want but it doesn't change the fact that sometimes I HAVE to go run an errand or eventually I need to go to work (puppies still get breaks every 3-4 hours even if I'm working all day).  The sooner they deal with this, the better IMO.  I just put the dog in with something to chew if they so choose and I go about my business.  If the dog is being quiet, I might reward with gentle praise (not praise that will excite the dog) or toss some treats in as I walk by.  I never let the dog out when he's throwing a fit, but I don't necessarily let the dog out just b/c he's quiet either, if that makes sense?  I decided then the dogs go in/out, not them.  To me crating is more of a fundamental thing than a trained behavior like doing tricks.  They just have to do it, really.  I have no dogs with separation anxiety and all my dogs acclimated to crating fairly quickly and easily.  None are scarred for life because I did not follow a 12 step program of acclimation.  All of my dogs are vastly different in temperament but all follow the same crate protocol and all are allowed the same privileges depending on their level of training and reliability.  Nikon and Coke have earned more freedom and are crated very minimally (Coke rarely b/c he doesn't go as many places, Nikon is currently crated in the vehicle and maybe for a few hours every few days while I do chores that could be dangerous with dogs in the way).  Pan has not proven himself reliable yet but seems no worse for the wear.  This morning I had to go to work after a late night and Pan had to be coaxed out of his crate.  After he pottied he went down to the basement and went inside another crate, went back to sleep.

Liesje;

Thanks for the info. I too am a big believer the sudden method (with dogs and puppies over twelve weeks. I just have not made up MY mind if it is healthy for the younger pups. I have tried both ways, but every dog is different so it is difficult to tease out whether behavioral results are caused by the crate method or the dogs genetic predisposition. I had a pup that was crate trained the gentle way and he turned out to be really a top-notch dog, But my main dog "Tex" RIP was trained by the sudden method and he was a faithful and obedient protector till the end ( I think Tex was 10 weeks when I got him)

As for Canine Autism, I can't say. I know there are many people who use the term to describe dogs that are "different" including some vets, Martha Stewart's Vet for example. I first diagnosed my dog Billy as retarded, because he was UNUSUALLY slow in learning (Pits are notorious for being slow, colse to the bottem in canine intelligence, but people love their fun loving nature and tenacious work-drive) But after a year of observation I have decided he acts more like an autistic child than a retarded one...who knows

Anyway, I very much respect your opinion on this, as you obviously know a thing or two about dogs 

tex123

As for Canine Autism, I can't say. I know there are many people who use the term to describe dogs that are "different" including some vets, Martha Stewart's Vet for example. I first diagnosed my dog Billy as retarded, because he was UNUSUALLY slow in learning (Pits are notorious for being slow, colse to the bottem in canine intelligence, but people love their fun loving nature and tenacious work-drive) But after a year of observation I have decided he acts more like an autistic child than a retarded one...who knows

I don't think it's accurate to use the terms autistic in regards to dogs.  Your use of the word retarded is also not appropriate to use for dogs or humans.  Just because "many people" use a term doesn't make it accurate.

tex123

Liesje;

Thanks for the info. I too am a big believer the sudden method (with dogs and puppies over twelve weeks. I just have not made up MY mind if it is healthy for the younger pups. I have tried both ways, but every dog is different so it is difficult to tease out whether behavioral results are caused by the crate method or the dogs genetic predisposition. I had a pup that was crate trained the gentle way and he turned out to be really a top-notch dog, But my main dog "Tex" RIP was trained by the sudden method and he was a faithful and obedient protector till the end ( I think Tex was 10 weeks when I got him)

As for Canine Autism, I can't say. I know there are many people who use the term to describe dogs that are "different" including some vets, Martha Stewart's Vet for example. I first diagnosed my dog Billy as retarded, because he was UNUSUALLY slow in learning (Pits are notorious for being slow, colse to the bottem in canine intelligence, but people love their fun loving nature and tenacious work-drive) But after a year of observation I have decided he acts more like an autistic child than a retarded one...who knows

Anyway, I very much respect your opinion on this, as you obviously know a thing or two about dogs 

Well a lot of this just boils down to temperament.  It's possible and likely these days for a dog to simply have a faulty temperament, and not be "autistic" or "retarded".  I am a firm believe that temperament IS genetic.  So, if certain breed traits are important, make sure to get a dog from a reputable source where you already know the temperament based on the dog's breeding.  If temperament doesn't really matter, the lineage of the dog will not matter, but that doesn't mean that variation from breed standard indicates the dog has mental problems.  I've never owned a pit (don't have any problems with them, just not the "type" of breed and temperament I need) so I am not familiar with their temperament.

The same is true for crate training, and anything you want to train, really.  Temperament should inform how you train.  I spend years choosing my dogs and when I pick one, I know how it will behave and how I will train it before it's even born.  I'm not saying this is the only way to obtain a dog (because I also have adopted animals with unknown background and adopted an adult mixed breed from a rescue), but if you prefer certain traits and want to train a certain way, it's only fair to have dogs that fit that scheme, and if you adopt dogs without knowing their lines and temperament, you have to be prepared for quite a bit of variation from the standard.  I don't crate train so much as a "crate break" a dog, but my dogs are extremely stable, well-tempered dogs that aren't going to be scarred for life or develop SA because I put them in a crate for an hour and ignored their howling.  A dog with an unknown background and/or questionable breeding probably has to have more consideration.  When we got Coke we had no idea if he was crate trained.  They said he was, but crate trained in one home doesn't automatically mean he's OK being crated in our home so we just treated him like a puppy and started over.  Turned out he was pretty well trained so the process went very fast and he "graduated" to free reign of the house within months and has ever since.

tex123

Pits are notorious for being slow, colse to the bottem in canine intelligence, but people love their fun loving nature and tenacious work-drive

Eh, some of the brightest dogs I've trained are Pits, and other terrier breeds. To be honest, some of them are actually quite intuitive that they get tired of "our" repetitive training style, and get bored. LOL.

 The only reason they fell onto the "bottom" of the intelligence scale had to do with training methods and the fact that Pits don't tolerate punishment all that well. Back in the 60's, Hounds and Terriers were always found in the bottom of obedience results - therefore they must be "unintelligent".  In reality, those are the two groups in that same time period (60's-80's) who did not respond well to the training methods at the time - jerk and pull, collar corrections, alpha rolls, etc.  With the advent of modern training tools (clicker training, for instance) and understanding how dogs learn, these dogs are now no longer considered "dumb" or "untrainable".

As for canine autism - I'm not sure we can use that term to describe dogs who display "different" behaviours, although I'm quite confident there are several types of social deficits that dogs can have that can have similar patterns as children with autism or asperger's. I have one dog who has quite stunted social patterns despite a normal upbringing - her dam died at birth and then the litter suffered a quite severe respiratory infection, so I cannot say what impact that had on her developing brain, but I do know that in discussing her "behaviours" (her fears, lack of toy play, her impulsiveness and outbursts, her sleep patterns, compulsive behaviours that develop during acute stress, her lack of understanding in "how" to play with dogs - she has very stunted play and is rarely, rarely, playful even with dogs she lives with), a lot of these behaviours actually match up with many symptoms of that spectrum. But I would never jump to say I have an "autistic" dog, as we don't know nearly enough about the canine brain and how it really works, and we can't use any sort of language with them to determine what is going on.

With crate training, I probably do a combination of the "sudden" and the "gradual" methods.  I also use a lot of ex-pens - a playpen for dogs that is not a kennel, but prevents freedom and keeps the puppy safe. I do a lot of teaching the dog about the kennel, we play Susan Garrett's "Crate Games" to work on their kenneling, I feed pups in their kennel for the first couple of months to help them really learn to love it. What works best for me is that I do my best to put the puppy in its kennel when it is starting to get tired anyhow, so that the pup is going in with tired and sleepy on the brain. I put the pup in with a good chew (antler, bully stick, or stuffed Kong) and just let the pup settle. The pup may whine or fuss a little bit, but because they have something to do, and because they are already tired, it doesn't take long for them to fall asleep. The pup will do this several times through the day, and will sleep in a kennel by my bed at night. I do a lot of training, a lot of traveling and competing, and do boarding as well, so my dogs have to be comfortable being confined in a calm manner. I have never had a problem with pups stressing in the kennel that I've raised. As the pup matures I vary when and where I kennel the pup, and for how long, so that the pup learns that it is "okay" to be kennelled even if it's not yet tired, such that I can take my pup anywhere and it can remain quiet and calm in the kennel.

Liesje

Well a lot of this just boils down to temperament.  It's possible and likely these days for a dog to simply have a faulty temperament, and not be "autistic" or "retarded".  I am a firm believe that temperament IS genetic.

I don't disagree with you necessarily, but if we compare species "the other way", we don't say that people with autism simply have a "faulty temperament", and we don't play it off that casually. I do think there are likely some (genetic, for sure) behaviour spectrums in dogs that will border on some of these social disorders, and we do have a few genuine disorders identified in dogs (Canine cognitive disfunction - much like Alzheimer's, compulsive disorders, anxiety disorders, etc).

I think the problem lies in the fact that we "assume" dog behaviour problems are all about training or lack of it, and we sometimes look at a dog and say "Wow, what an untrained dog!" or "Ew, I don't like that faulty temperament" and don't always take into consideration there may be physical brain differences between that dog and "normal" dogs, and by normal I mean the average behaviours considered "normal" for that breed, that may truly be indicitive of an underlying disorder. Dogs have all the same brain chemicals (neurotranmitters and hormones) as humans do, and so far we are finding that their bases also work along the same lines, so it's probably not much of a stretch to say that some "difficult" or "undersocialized" and even the "dangerous" dogs likely have something else going on that we simply have not yet identified.

You know, you can start to ponder - you will often see that rare dog (regardless of breed) who has a very strange, unpredictable, idiopathic aggression that does not respond well to training, or medicine.  We generally euthanize those dogs, or manage them very carefully. Some would question - does the dog world have psychopaths or sociopaths? Is this their version? It's a very interesting field of question if you really start to think about not "the dog", but the brain inside the dog and what it is really doing, and how that relates to human behaviour.

I know, I know, I'm rambling now. But always lots to consider, as I do think it's one of those situations in which twenty years from now we'll find out that "we" are not nearly as "unique" as we think we are, especially in terms of what things we share - good or bad.  Comes back to our differences tend to be in degree, not kind.

I agree that there are definitely dogs who have various cognitive, neurological, etc disorders.  But in this case I think it's a stretch to call a dog "retarded" b/c it doesn't act like other pits.  If the dog is spacing out, having seizures, acting *really* strange, uncontrolled aggression, etc I'd be seeing vet yesterday and not worrying about crate training. 

I do think my Kenya is one of those dogs that has something not quite right up there.  She would get "stuck" in these patterns of behavior that it appeared she had no control over.  None of the normal meds (prozac, elavil, melatonin, etc) made any lick of difference.  One evening, she somehow got at a bottle of DH's anti-seizure medications and chewed some of the pills.  After our initial panic, rushing to the vet, calling the vet poison hotline, etc it turned out she would be fine, we joked that she was the most "normal" after she'd taken an octuple dose of anticonvulsants dosed for a 250lb man.  In her case, her inability to control some of her behavior does very much impact how she was trained and how she lives in the house; that takes precedent over how I prefer to crate train or train this or that.

tex123

Fair eneugh, what terms would you suggest?

Why do you need a one word term to describe a dog's behavior?  I see no reason to try and find a label to describe a dog's behavior.  I prefer to deal with dogs without labeling them with "one word fits all" type descriptions. I'm not referring to you necessarily but labels can often be counterproductive and many people will start to "read" certain behavior incorrectly to try and make it fit their label.

tex123

Fair eneugh, what terms would you suggest?

To be honest, I don't suggest terms. I like descriptions. Try to avoid saying what the dog "IS" or "IS NOT", but rather say "what is the dog DOING".   Sort of like above where I described my dog's behaviours, and why they were not "typical". I didn't say she's "anything", but rather I describe a set of traits that she has that sets her apart a bit from other dogs of her type. That is often a lot more helpful too when it comes to trying to understand an issue or getting feedback on something your dog is doing.

Same way  for me, when I get calls often I get something like "My dog is aggressive".  That doesn't actually help me much, except to know I'm not dealing with a simple housetraining case. I say "What is the dog doing that is worrying you?". Often I get "Well, he's being aggressive, and he's quite dominant".  Still not helpful to narrowing down the issue! So then I have to change my question - "In what situation is the dog acting aggressively"?  "Is the dog moving toward or away from the trigger?" "Where is the behaviour taking place?"  "Can you describe what sounds/movements/gesture your dog is doing at that moment?"  It's really, really hard for a lot of folks to simply look at what the dog is doing at that moment, we always try to throw descriptions and labels on things right away. In some cases, it's helpful (apples, oranges, and grapefruit are all fruits, for instance), but in other cases it doesn't help the situation or a reader's understanding at all.

Liesje

But in this case I think it's a stretch to call a dog "retarded" b/c it doesn't act like other pits.

Oh for sure!

I'm just trying to make some interesting conversation. LOL.  I feel we've been lacking the "pondering" stuff lately here.

Kim_MacMillan

Same way  for me, when I get calls often I get something like "My dog is aggressive".  That doesn't actually help me much, except to know I'm not dealing with a simple housetraining case.

Every trainer who has trained dogs for other people and I trained dogs for other people for many, many years, have heard this type of one word description from a client.  You absolutely have to question exactly what behaviors are happening and even that isn't always helpful.  Many dog owners don't recognize what they are seeing and have no idea how to explain in terms that are helpful to a trainer. 

To go back to the crate training issue.  I believe Lies learned with puppy Nikon that rewarding the puppy/dog by letting it out of the crate when it's pitching a fit will enforce in the dog's mind that if it makes enough noise it will be released and can set back the acceptance of the crate by a few days.  To me, that causes more stress on the dog because it prolongs the training period and you've set the dog up to believe that if only it makes enough noise, the human will eventually release it.  Not that I think it causes so much stress that a dog is affected long term but I prefer to just get it done and over with and move on.

Kim_MacMillan

 I feel we've been lacking the "pondering" stuff lately here.

We have!

And I think Kim is correct in describing behaviors and not labels.  The aggression thing is a great example, one that hits home for me because not only do I own GSDs but train them in protection work. We (those who train this way) view aggression as a GOOD thing, we like a dog that exudes power, control, confidence.  Aggression itself is not bad, it's just another aspect of temperament.  What is bad is when a dog is fearful, has no confidence, has a low threshold, etc.  But you have to weed that out by examining what exactly the dog does that is unexpected or inappropriate.  My most "aggressive" dog happens to be my dog that is the best in social situations.  He is somewhat of a mascot for a local school, so he does demos, helps train kids how to pet a strange dog, marches in parades to promoted the school.  He loves and audience and puts on a show, and he likes interacting with kids.  And he just so happens to be my protection dog with the best active aggression of all my dogs so far.

Using one word to describe a dogs behavior saves time.

I could write a lengthy boring tome about Billy and his wierdness (unaverage behavior) but since the topic is more about crate training I felt that most people here would get it if I said retarded/autistic....I checked with billy, and he is not offended by the term, but then since he is a DOG his vocabulary may not be sufficiently developed to appreciate that lables are intrinsically insulting....I guess thats why people who lie habitually, fly into a rage at the slightest criticism, have absolutely no conscience, or regard for others, but have high IQ (there I go again) get mad when they are diagnosed as SOCIOPATHIC...recently changed in the DSM to ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER, when I finish here I am going to write the AMA and set them strait.

PEOPLE!......lighten up!

Meanwhile back in the crate,...I love this S***.... I led the pup into his crate with a piece of fried chicken (which cows say we are supposed to "eet mor" of btw) and said "place" as he crossed the threshold. While he was thus distracted, I quickly locked the door and proceeded with a similar manuver with the bitch... adult female, sorry...anyway, I explained to them that I had to go out for a couple of hours but would be back promptly at 6:30 and ask them not to pitch a (adult female dog) while I was absent. Having reasoned with them in this way, I cranked up the old PU and drove away!

Guess what?? when I returned at promptly 6:30 they had not pitched a (female adult dog) and in fact were calmly regarding the circumstances and each other (both crates were facing each other about 3' apart)...Mystery solved! proper crate training is best accomplished by the "sudden-gradual" method. Thank you all for the advice, without which, I would never have discovered this new method of crate training.

BTW I call this new method the "SUDADUAL" method ;-)

One thing I would change is wait for the dog to go in the crate and THEN give the treat.  I used to lure Nikon in with food all the time and discovered that he would not go in a crate without it.  Now I have since switched to rewarding them for doing it rather than luring/bribing it.